eSATA or SATA Host
SATA is replacing ATA legacy technology as the next generation internal bus interface for hard drives. The SATA interface is more popular due greater speed and easy cabling than the older parallel technology. SATA cables are narrow and can be up to three feet (1 meter) in length, whereas parallel cables are much wider and limited to a length of 18 inches (45.7 cm). With PM ware (port multiplier technology), the number of drive per SATA port goes up to five drives make the expands of storage much more easy and cost effective.
While eSATA reaches transfer rates up to 3.0Gbps and in 6.0Gbps in next SATA generation (SATA 3), this interface clearly is an excellent choice for external disk storage.
