[bencurtis]

Hi,

Currently have a G4 Desktop and looking to move to a new iMac.
The problem is I have a bunch of eSATA+USB external RAID drives that I'd need to use with it.
The eSATA is great on my G4 via a PCI card, but if I switch to an iMac I'm gonna have to use them at slow USB2.0 speeds.
Is there anything like a FW800 to eSATA converter? Or am I stuck with the choice of USB speed or buying new enclosures?
I don't understand why they just didn't put an eSATA port on it, I mean it has a SATA controller already it's just a question of cabling...

Thanks,

Ben

[mduell]

How handy are you with a dremel and a soldering iron? That's pretty much the only way you're going to get eSATA on an iMac. The chipset supports 3 SATA ports, so Apple could have easily offered 2 eSATA ports, but they're rather push the slower and more expensive FW800.

edit: On second thought, you can get cheap little SATA-USB2 adapters so I assume you can get something similar Firewire, but I haven't actually seen one.

[bencurtis]

Dremel. Soldering iron. Nah, that's too far for me...

It's true there are lots of USB2.0 to SATA converters e.g.

USB2.0 to SATA Bridge cable SATA I or SATA II Hard Drive Adapter

...but my enclosures already have USB2.0, so I'd be able to use them but it would just pain me to use my nice RAID enclosures at USB2.0 speed, having been used to the eSATA speed.

SOHO/RAID

I haven't seen any converters for firewire to eSATA. The closest I've seen is stuff like this:

SATA to FireWire 800 and USB2.0 Bridge Board with Oxford 924

...which wouldn't be very elegant and needs a power supply it would appear.

Ben

PS - Basically Apple only had to add something like this....

Dual eSATA II PCI Port Bracket