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misterdna · Jul 22, 2008, 01:47 PM

I've seen people reference the Newer Technology eSATA extender a lot in this forum as well as many other places. It sounded like a good product, so I purchased it, and went through the entire installation process per their instructions. Besides one troublesome screw that kept falling during reassembly, I was surprised that installation was actually easier than I expected (and I expected it to be a bear, because the directions require you to take your Mac Pro apart far beyond what many think necessary). In all honesty, it was kinda fun to take my Mac apart.

Now for the bad news. My Mac crashes every time I try to start it connected to my fairly new LaCie external (with current firmware). The external drive is powered on before the computer (as is required), and the drive works flawlessly with the FW800 connect. But the eSATA connection brings nothing but crashes.

I was really disappointed when I called for Newer Tech support. You see, Newer Tech treats this product as cable, not an eSATA solution. So as long as the cable is functioning, that's where Newer Tech ends the tech support. I had a strong feeling that the tech had a lot of knowledge about my issue, but that he held back because it was beyond the limitation of their support for the product (or if I'm cynical, I would say they don't want to admit that there are a lot of issues trying to connect eSATA-capable externals to the unsupported SATA ports on the Mac). Of course, Apple does not support the use of these SATA ports, so there is no turning to Apple for advice (and no reason to assume Apple will address any eSATA issues on their end, if there are any). And how can you start blaming the external drive manufacturer, when you're trying to connect their drive to a full-on eSATA hack, rather than an official and supported eSATA port?

Upon a little further research, there seems to be scores of people complaining on various forums about problems with eSATA and their Leopard macs (to be fair, there are also people having no problems). There's talk of various chipsets, etc used in the external drives, some of which don't work right, and talk of drives that worked fine until recent versions of the OS. But the bottom line for me is, it's a whole can of worms I wasn't expecting. It seems that a lot of people who recommend this cable may not be aware of the potential roadblocks of trying to connect your external drive to your Mac using the Newer Tech eSATA extender.

My feeling at present is that a decent number of external drives just don't play nice when connected to the secret SATA ports via this extender. If anyone with eSATA expertise want to weigh in on my problem, I'm all ears.

misterdna · Jul 22, 2008, 01:52 PM

Note that I posted this in the Mac Pro forum because this is where I read about the eSATA extender a number of times. I realize that "Mac Modifications" might seem like a more appropriate forum, but I felt it makes more sense in a forum where the item is referenced a lot. I probably am trying to warn people of potential problems as much as I am looking for advice on my particular problem.

Drakino · Aug 5, 2008, 02:42 PM

I can only offer my experience with a 2008 model Mac Pro. It's working fine for the most part for me with both a cheepo CompUSA 2.5 inch eSATA enclosure and also the quad interface OWC 3.5 inch enclosure. The lack of hotplug support is annoying, but beyond that the use of the drives has been without issues.

I did have some odd issues with a kernel panic when working with my NAS over SMB and a drive plugged in, but it was in a rather rare setup for my Mac. I had plugged in as many drives as possible, joined them all together in a JBOD setup and did a full NAS backup and restore. This was using the PATA connectors, eSATA, SATA, and even a Firewire drive to cobble together enough space. The kernel panics stopped when I used rsync instead of smb.

misterdna · Aug 5, 2008, 03:14 PM

Thanks for your reply. I've learned a lot since my first post. xlr8yourmac.com ended up spending some time with me, and also had users post their experiences with the NewerTech extender. Looks like eSATA problems are pretty rare with the cable, and problems seem likely attributable to issues with the external device. Right now it looks like the multi-interface controllers in my LaCie drives are the culprit in my case (LaCie has offered a warranty service to try to fix my problem).
So my post should probably be alerting people who have problems with the Newer Technology extender that they should look to their multi-interface external device.

mduell · Aug 5, 2008, 04:25 PM

They sold you a $3 bracket for $25 and their support (which must be what you're paying for!) can't tell you that neither the Mac Pro motherboard nor OS X support hot swapping SATA?

Bad controllers from LaCie? Who would have guessed! Oh wait, everyone who has ever bought their crap.

misterdna · Aug 5, 2008, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

They sold you a $3 bracket for $25 and their support (which must be what you're paying for!) can't tell you that neither the Mac Pro motherboard nor OS X support hot swapping SATA?

Bad controllers from LaCie? Who would have guessed! Oh wait, everyone who has ever bought their crap.

Well, it's actually never been a hot-swapping issue in my case, I knew I had to power on the external eSATA drive before booting. But I did believe I was paying a premium for the cable in exchange for a little more help from Newer Tech.

And I guess I have been lucky with LaCie drives. I've bought a bunch LaCie externals over the past 5 years and never had a single issue until the eSATA problem.

Bwa · Aug 5, 2008, 09:50 PM

I bought the cable expecting it would be relatively easy to install, but it's still sitting in its bag after I looked at the directions. I have the 2008 Mac Pro. I've built dozens of PCs over the years, but taking apart my Mac to the degree shown in the directions that I depend on to work frightens me.

Does anyone w/ the cable installed know(or can you guess) if it would go into the slot for the double sized video card? I have 3x2600 ATIs and would like to keep the 4th slot open for an actual card.

I have a dual bay (not multiplying; two cables) eSATA chassis I used to use with a PC; I'd love to get more storage onto the Mac Pro, but I might have to just get off my butt and set-up iSCSI.

misterdna · Aug 5, 2008, 10:52 PM

Originally Posted by Bwa

I bought the cable expecting it would be relatively easy to install, but it's still sitting in its bag after I looked at the directions. I have the 2008 Mac Pro. I've built dozens of PCs over the years, but taking apart my Mac to the degree shown in the directions that I depend on to work frightens me.

I had read a lot of reports about the complexity of the installation (as directed), so I wasn't shocked. I've built zero PCs over the years, but I found it went easier than I expected with my 2008 Mac Pro. I've also seen posts online from people who didn't follow the crazy dismantling as directed, and just kinda did it by feel and by shoving the cable.

Does anyone w/ the cable installed know(or can you guess) if it would go into the slot for the double sized video card? I have 3x2600 ATIs and would like to keep the 4th slot open for an actual card.

If you install it per the directions, I don't think the cable is long enough to reach down to any slot other than the top one. But my guess is it would reach if you don't tuck the wire up along the top.

I have a dual bay (not multiplying; two cables) eSATA chassis I used to use with a PC; I'd love to get more storage onto the Mac Pro, but I might have to just get off my butt and set-up iSCSI.

Hmmm, iSCSI is something I know nothing about.

mduell · Aug 6, 2008, 08:28 PM

Originally Posted by Bwa

Does anyone w/ the cable installed know(or can you guess) if it would go into the slot for the double sized video card? I have 3x2600 ATIs and would like to keep the 4th slot open for an actual card.

I have a dual bay (not multiplying; two cables) eSATA chassis I used to use with a PC; I'd love to get more storage onto the Mac Pro, but I might have to just get off my butt and set-up iSCSI.

Yes, it will go into the slot that has no PCIe connector.

Why do you need block-level sharing?

tnelson · Aug 8, 2008, 05:06 PM

I've used a similar internal SATA cable on my Mac Pro for use with an external dual eSATA case I got from OWC. I haven't had any issues with it, but tend to think your problem may indeed be chipset related.

Did you try different hard drive(s)? Would be interesting to know which ones are working.

misterdna · Aug 22, 2008, 06:07 PM

I just got the final answer on my LaCie drive that wasn't working with my Newer Tech eSATA extander kit.

From the LaCie tech: "The control board was found to be defective and was replaced. Once this was done the drive passed all of our tests and was shipped back to you."

A second LaCie drive I have (with a consecutive serial number), also must have a defective control board. I was wrong to blame Newer Technology for the problem, it was really LaCie. I apologize to Newer Tech for tarnishing their name. I guess my good luck with LaCie drives was way overdue to end.

-Rob

Drakino · Aug 23, 2008, 01:00 AM

Originally Posted by mduell

They sold you a $3 bracket for $25 and their support (which must be what you're paying for!) can't tell you that neither the Mac Pro motherboard nor OS X support hot swapping SATA?

To be fair, they probably don't make all that many of these brackets, so the cost is bound to be a bit higher. The length of the cables is exactly what it needs to be to run from the ports on the motherboard to the back of the system.

As for the hot swapping part, it's not a limitation of OS X, just whatever Apple driver runs those onboard ports. I use an expresscard eSATA card on my MacBook Pro, and the drives I attach to it show with the orange external icons, and can be ejected and removed.

mduell · Aug 23, 2008, 01:15 PM

Originally Posted by Drakino

As for the hot swapping part, it's not a limitation of OS X, just whatever Apple driver runs those onboard ports. I use an expresscard eSATA card on my MacBook Pro, and the drives I attach to it show with the orange external icons, and can be ejected and removed.

Is the eSATA ExpressCard presenting the drives to the OS as SCSI devices?