Sata vs eSata

[Gunn]

I ordered an external two bay enclosure for a backup system. I think I must use two identical 500gb eSata drives. I can find plenty of Sata drives like the Barracuda but I am having trouble finding eSata drives. What I read says they really are different but the retail salesmen around here don't understand what I am asking for!!! Help.

JoJo

PS, I hope you folks are enjoying me going to the trouble of giving you some mental exercise.

[Jerry]

I ordered an external two bay enclosure for a backup system. I think I must use two identical 500gb eSata drives. I can find plenty of Sata drives like the Barracuda but I am having trouble finding eSata drives. What I read says they really are different but the retail salesmen around here don't understand what I am asking for!!! Help.

JoJo

PS, I hope you folks are enjoying me going to the trouble of giving you some mental exercise.

Basically, you have Sata 1 and 2 drives that run through either an onboard or card driven controller. Don't mix up drives and conrollers. Sata is the drive and esata is the conroller interface. Esata=external sata.
The way you can check this is go to newegg or tigerdirect and look at the esata boxes for single drives. You will see some bundled with the drive. Check out the drive.
If you like the Barracuda, then as long as it is Sata 2(I wouldn't bother with the sata1 versions-except the raptors) you should be good to go.
Make sure the box accepts SATA drives and not PATA drives.
Also, if you go with the Barracuda, it depends on the model but the jumper must be removed to do 3.0. It ships as 1.5
Hope this helps!

Give a link to the box that you ordered so we can check out the interface.