That rats' nest of cables cluttering your desk and snaking onto the floor could soon become a whole lot, well, less ratty, with the introduction of the new power-over-eSATA standard.
Work has started on a new technical specification that will allow external SATA storage devices (eSATA) to receive power via their single external cable, removing the need for a separate power cord.
Although the standard is designed for connection of external hard drives, it could potentially be used inside PCs too, allowing bare metal hard drives to be installed with a single cable rather than the two that are currently required.
The nobly named Serial ATA International Organisation (SATA-IO), a consortium of companies with vested interests in the SATA standard, says the new Power-over eSATA specification should be completed by the second half of this year. Equipment based on it should quickly follow. SATA-IO members include Dell, HP, Intel, Hitachi and Seagate.
 eSATA: about to become much more attractive with power delivered over the same connector |
One of the key challenges to be addressed by the new standard is to ensure that the new power-enabled connectors are backwardly compatible with existing eSATA gear. The standard will also need to maintain a data transfer rate of 3 gigabits per second.
Takeup of the eSATA standard has been slow to date, despite the fact that it allows drives to be run externally at the same speed as they would if installed internally in a PC.
The SATA-IO believes moving to a powered version of eSATA will make storage equipment based on the standard more appealing to end users. It comes at a time when external storage growing in popularity in both small office and home applications.
Doing away with power cables will also make the prospect of using an eSATA-based device on the road much easier. Rather than hunting for a power point, users will simply be able to connect a hard drive or optical storage device directly to their computer.