Ultimate 12 core/Apple prpmotion

[BernardLanguillier]

do you have to plug in an expansion card to use an external SATA drive?

Yes, I believe that the Mac Pro does not feature an external eSATA port.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Fritzer]

... do you have to plug in an expansion card to use an external SATA drive?

There is an unused SATA connector in the lower optical drive bay, I assume there is some sort of adapter so you could use it with an eSATA bracket.
That said, why bother - you can get fast eSATA cards for little money, like the Maxpower models at OWC .
Look for one that is hot-swap ready , maybe supports port-multiplying.

External drives are usually connected by eSATA , internally there are mostly SATA ports - same technology, just different cables basically .

[BernardLanguillier]

External drives are usually connected by eSATA , internally there are mostly SATA ports - same technology, just different cables basically .

Nope. eSATA and SATA differ more than just cables shape, and recent Macs are fully eSATA internally.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Dick Roadnight]

Thank you all, again for the info.

[RobSaecker]

Nope. eSATA and SATA differ more than just cables shape, and recent Macs are fully eSATA internally.

Bernard,

there is something amiss with that statement. eSATA is external SATA, see for instance http://www.serialata.org/technology/esata.asp, and there is no mention of eSATA on the Apple's Mac Pro pages. In addition, there are no hard drives that use the eSATA interface, it's only enclosures that use it, and they use standard SATA connectors to connect the drives.

Unless you have better information, in which case I'll willingly stand corrected. 

[jduncan]

Bernard,

there is something amiss with that statement. eSATA is external SATA, see for instance http://www.serialata.org/technology/esata.asp, and there is no mention of eSATA on the Apple's Mac Pro pages. In addition, there are no hard drives that use the eSATA interface, it's only enclosures that use it, and they use standard SATA connectors to connect the drives.

Unless you have better information, in which case I'll willingly stand corrected. 

Agree, maybe an example may help:
iMAC modification from OMC. They take the sata port in the 27 that normaly connects to the SSD and extended it externally with a cable and voila an esata port.
Maybe is a typo, and he has referring to ATA (parallel ata, as we call it today?). Here are the links about the imac:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac_2010_27
http://ieba.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/owc/

With that you lose one internal sata port. For the Mac pro there is no need for hacking.
Bare feats (http://www.barefeats.com) have tests for different esata cards. There is no need to use one of the two high speed slots (x16) on the mac for the esata by the way.

[Wayne Fox]

Nope. eSATA and SATA differ more than just cables shape, and recent Macs are fully eSATA internally.

Cheers,
Bernard

Curious as to your source. Doesn't sound like the case from the specs ...

"Four 3.5-inch cable-free, direct-attach drive bays with built-in independent 3Gb/s Serial ATA channels; four internal drive carriers included"

[BernardLanguillier]

Oops, my bad, you are correct gentlemen.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Fritzer]

That's easy to confuse, I just happened to have done lots of research for my MacPro.

MacPro , early 2008 and before : 2 empty SATA ports on the motherboard, can be used for extra internal harddrives, eSATA brackets to connect ecternal eSATA enclosures (one per), etc. . Need to lead cables from Mobo to device .
Optical drive : IDE , unused power connector in optical bay (needs adapter).

MacPro , late 2008 - today : One unused SATA connector in lower optical bay, connects straight to any SATA device (one); optical drive : SATA .