Oh No! eSATA Assimilates USB, Forms Power eSATA

Resistance is futile. Until USB 3.0 arrives, eSATA will continue to take over USB 2.0 ports. MSI now seems to take one step further by marrying USB 2.0's bus power and eSATA port to form what it calls Power eSATA. The mobo maker decides to go ahead with this because eSATA cannot supply power whereas USB can feed 500mA current needed to feed an external drive.

The main advantage of this is that users won't have to look for a power-only USB cable to leech power from a nearby USB port. The obvious downside is that there are hardly any peripherals supporting this other than OCZ Throttle eSATA SSD. MSI has started shipping AM3 motherboards as well as eight notebooks with this proprietary connector. Let's see if others will follow suit, but this is as a temporary fix as it gets.