If you own a quad-core or 8-core Mac Pro workstation, you may be able to easily and cheaply add 2 more “internal” eSATA drives externally to your system. The folks at Other World Computing (my favorite hard drive and Mac hardware vendor) are offering a simple breakout cable kit from Newer Technology that accesses the two unused eSATA ports found on these machines’ logic boards. You might not even realize you have these extra ports hiding inside your computer and the Mac Pro can handle up to 6 internal drives (if you want more, you’ll have to add additional bus cards).

If you edit video or work in a high performance environament reequiring fast data throughput, you already know that eSATA connections are superior to USB and Firewire-connected drives. The kit consists of a simple pair of cables which you connect to the open ports and which terminates in two plugs in one of your PCI slots. You can then attach two external eSATA drives (no daisy-chaining possible and they’re not hot-swappable) or a dual drive enclosure. Installation does require removal of some screws and a fan, but it’s a pretty straightforward operation that should nnot be a problem for a pro user. The Newer Technology kit is priced at $24.95 which is much cheaper than installing an eSATA bus card.

Tags: mac, storage, eSATA