Using an Internal DVD burner externally (SATA)

[Draugr]

Hi all.

I hope this is the right forum to ask this question.

I picked up the Samsung SH-S203B drive today. I also have an acrylic clear case coming that I am building my new PC in. I wanted to get a silver or white bezel burner to put in the case, but the best burner appears to be the Samsung right now and so I picked it up even if it was only available in black. At least that was the only color I found the SH-S203B in.

Anyhow, I then noticed another piece of hardware which is basically a monitor stand/keyboard drawer with a 5.25 inch bay within it. There is no SATA or IDE cabling or connections in the unit, so I'll have to run my own.

My idea is to put the burner in the external keybaord / monitor stand and then use an external power supply that has a female Molex connector which I'd then connect a typical male molex to SATA power adapter. This would give power to the drive.

The next idea is where my question comes in.

I guess I'd have to get a 3 or 4 foot eSATA cable to run from the rear SATA brackets on my motherboard to the back of the Samsung internal DVD burner. My question is this.... Is there any difference in the connector ends on an eSATA cable compared to a standard SATA cable? If so, is there some way to get an eSATA cable to connect to the back SATA port on the internal SAMSUNG drive? Is there an adapter, etc...

Before I go an purchase these items, I wanted to see if there is a way to accomplish this task. I hope some of you hear might be a bit more knowledgeable than I am in the differences in SATA and eSATA. I appreciate any help.

Thanks
John

PS: Here are links to the items I am talking about.

The external keyboard/monitor stand with 5.25 inch drive bay:

http://www.xoxide.com/logisys-pc-extension-system.html

The Molex external power supply

http://www.pctoys.com/840556029977.html

The eSATA cable

http://www.xoxide.com/esata-round-cable-uvblue.html

The Samsung DVD burner

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10006485

[Draugr]

[UPDATE]

I found out that there are eSATA to SATA cables, so I'm assuming that cable would do the trick. I'd still like to hear from other forum members and if they have any experience trying to use an internal SATA burner externally via a eSATA to SATA cable connecting the drive to an eSATA port on the back or front of a PC case. I'd still like to know if this idea I mentioned in the above post will work fine.

Thanks
John

[Ian]

You could also get an SATA to USB adapter and use that. eSATA would probably give you better performance though. A lot of USB buses can't handle 20x writing speeds.