Quote Originally Posted by 3Z3VH View Post
Powered eSATA devices already exist, it is just a matter of people building and including the ports to plug them into.
as i understand it powered esata requires support from the mobo as well as the drives/enclosures themselves. i mean you can't just plug the cable inside the case into a regular sata slot and expect the esata port to be power.

also with new versions of usb and firewire (not that anyone uses firewire) one has to wonder how usefull esata will continue to be. with usb3 the speed won't be an issue at 4.8Gbps. i'm not totally sure on whether a single usb 3.0 plug can power an external drive, but i do know they've upped the amount of power the ports deliver quite a bit so it seems likely.

i'm not saying esata wouldn't be useful, it's quite arguably more useful than firewire (though i'm sure someone could argue that too) but it's definitely a minor thing to complain about in the grand scheme of things.