Expresscard 54 with two eSata ports

I saw that there are many cheap ExpressCard 54 devices providing two eSata ports.

What I want to ask you guys if powering normal sata hard drives will work from the ExpressCard device. There are "dual power 5V/12V eSata to 22pin Sata" cables which not only convert the "I" to "L" shaped connector but also provide power connector near the "L" shaped one.

I wonder of the ExpressCard 54 will actually output power and will it be 12V? Here is the pic of the cable:



If that will not work, I will jump to the solution with eSata+USB to Sata combo (which is a bit more inconvenient):



Sadly the second variant limits me to 5V only which makes it impossible for 3.5" hard drive.

My target is a "harddisk copy/restore" independent device. The problem is that it usually happens to be needed for regular 3.5" sata hard drives and they need 12V power...

P.S. I know for the "HDD docking station" solution

 

As far as I can tell, none of those will provide the voltage you want, USB is limited to 5V and from what I could find on Google, expresscard seems to be limited to 3.3V, it might be 5V, but not 12V. Expresscard can power a 2.5" drive just fine, but that's about it.

There are some SATA to USB bridges that have a PSU, kind of like your solution #2, but with a power brick for 12V.

 

It's not just the Voltage that is low, also the mA is really low on Expresscards. It can drive my SSD through an USB3, but a HDD needs extra juice from an USB-port.

 

That's what I thought... Thank you for the information.

Now I am puzzled what to use that express 54 for... It looks like it's a useless slot. Probably I will get a card reader (MMC XD Memory Stick)...

 

You could use it for extra USB ports, USB 3.0 ports, firewire, too.

 

Mogo mouse...HP branded ones are $17 on the bay..

 

Cardreaders are nice and usefull.
This is what I use: Startech flush USB 3
this way I can make clones and backups with a usefull speed (I have a huge amount of tiny files that take forever to copy).

 

a PC Card (cardbus) slot provides 3.3V and 5V, but at max 400mA, so it's only useful for 2.5" drives. I have a AKE pc-card adapter, which has one SATA + one eSATA slot.

If you have a 3.5" USB/eSATA enclosure, it will most likely have it's own PSU, so power won't be an issue.

forget about those cable adapters, just use a standard eSATA cable, from the expresscard adapter to the drive enclosure.

 

I ordered $10 Chinese "noname" card which have eSata port, USB3 port and additional USB power port.

 

Be careful what you plus in to it. If it draws too much current they have been known to do bad things to the motherboard.

Good reading..http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/549127-ake-usb-pcmcia.html

 

good warning, thanks for that!