bobross Posted April 20, 2010 Share Posted April 20, 2010 I have a Thermaltake eSATA HD dock. When I put my SL disk in, it hangs during boot. If I connect via internal MoBo SATA it boots fine. Any ideas on how to get the eSATA dock working? cheers, Bob Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216033-snow-leopard-crashes-when-booting-from-esata-dock/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoarthing Posted April 21, 2010 Share Posted April 21, 2010 I have a Thermaltake eSATA HD dock. When I put my SL disk in, it hangs during boot. If I connect via internal MoBo SATA it boots fine. Any ideas on how to get the eSATA dock working? cheers, Bob . . . eSATA is a non-Apple interface, so far. I suspect it will never be used in Macs/Macbooks - Firewire800 is fine for now, tho' a slight bottleneck; & future models will connect to fast external storage via USB3. The 'driver' used for eSATA is Apple's generic AHCI one, & this has to cope with differences in mainboard or plugin eSATA controllers, then differences in the many makes of aSATA bridge-chips [ie the one in your dock]. This has simply never got sorted out: in the world I know about - RAID boxes attached to Mac Pros & Macbook Pros for media work - eSATA solutions only work properly when you buy all the recommended/tested links in the chain: ie for a Macbook Pro with an expresscard34 slot, you get a card with a specific bridge-chip, then this connects to a RAID-box [or other docking device] again using a specific & tested bridge-chip & so on. Sorry; but this neat widget of yours is likely to be more hassle than it is worth. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216033-snow-leopard-crashes-when-booting-from-esata-dock/#findComment-1452655 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobross Posted April 21, 2010 Author Share Posted April 21, 2010 . . . eSATA is a non-Apple interface, so far. I suspect it will never be used in Macs/Macbooks - Firewire800 is fine for now, tho' a slight bottleneck; & future models will connect to fast external storage via USB3. The 'driver' used for eSATA is Apple's generic AHCI one, & this has to cope with differences in mainboard or plugin eSATA controllers, then differences in the many makes of aSATA bridge-chips [ie the one in your dock]. This has simply never got sorted out: in the world I know about - RAID boxes attached to Mac Pros & Macbook Pros for media work - eSATA solutions only work properly when you buy all the recommended/tested links in the chain: ie for a Macbook Pro with an expresscard34 slot, you get a card with a specific bridge-chip, then this connects to a RAID-box [or other docking device] again using a specific & tested bridge-chip & so on. Sorry; but this neat widget of yours is likely to be more hassle than it is worth. Thanks for the info! I actually got it working. The nice people at Thermaltake have also included a USB 2.0 port. I've successfully booted OSX SL off the dock! BTW these docks are very handy, highly recommended! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216033-snow-leopard-crashes-when-booting-from-esata-dock/#findComment-1453164 Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoarthing Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 Thanks for the info! I actually got it working. The nice people at Thermaltake have also included a USB 2.0 port. I've successfully booted OSX SL off the dock! BTW these docks are very handy, highly recommended! . . o yes, USB2 will always work, if sloooowly . . glad you have it sorted. For the last coupla years I have been using a slightly more universal widget for bare drives: this 'ere geek-tool . . . if I were to get a dock like yours right now, would try to find an affordable one (this is not)with a Firewire800 connection . . but USB3 will doubtless solve all these hassles for a good few years. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/216033-snow-leopard-crashes-when-booting-from-esata-dock/#findComment-1453438 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts