Regarding installation, this was so much easier than I had anticpated. The included instructions were very clear and made step-by-step installation easy and relatively fast. I had the whole thing done in a half-hour, and I was working slowly and carefully.
I have not fully explored usage yet, but the tests I did had my external drives mounting exactly as I'd expect from an eSATA connection. The previous reviewer is correct, maximum total cable length must be observed. That would be the only drawback to this device - you have a half-meter of internal cabling that must always be taken into account.
The only cons I would mention, and they aren't related to this product but rather to usage with certain Mac Pro models - no port multiplier support and no hot swap support. Please research this with your particular Mac Pro and your intended usage to make sure this will work for you.
For my particular usage, this item was perfect. Easily worth the money and time to install.
Works well - once I had the correct length external cable
PostedOctober 12, 2012
I installed this into my Early 2008 Mac Pro to gain the additional two SATA ports. I actually bought two of them both for the same type of Mac Pro (early 2008)
Like another reviewer, it worked great for a few days and then started failing all over the place - mostly disk disconnections. Thinking it was the drive enclosure (also from macsales) I borrowed my buddies enclosure to rule it out. That also had massive disconnections.
I then noticed that this is really just an extender cable with an eSATA connector at the end. So, it is really a SATA connection from the computers standpoint.
SATA cables can only have lengths up to 1 meter. I had known this and bought a 1 meter cable with my enclosure. But it then dawned on me that when the 1 meter external cable is added to the extender cable from macsales I was, of course, over the 1 meter limit! Doh! I replaced the external 1 meter cables with 0.5 meter cables and all has been well for a year now.
Bottom line for me is that this works great - as long as you have a 0.5 meter cable or less to connect it to your external hard drives.
I purchased this adapter assembly along with the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini drive enclosure for use in an Early 2008 Mac Pro. Installation is slightly fiddly, but by no means difficult. The instructions are adequately detailed, and accurately illustrate all necessary steps of installing this assembly. And value for price is outstanding (versus adding a PCIe eSATA card).
The port bracket itself does feel a bit on the thin side perhaps, and it did pop loose on me after installation. I reassembled it, tightened the bracket retainer a bit better, and all is well ever since. But really, I believe this piece of the assembly could be a bit more robust given the Mac Pro's bracket retention method.
Functionality is exactly as described, and works well with the aforementioned Mercury drive enclosure and a second single-disk eSATA drive.
Pros: expansion functionality
Cons: bracket is a bit thin
I would recommend this to a friend!
My product recommendations
OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini bus-powered Multi-Interface RAID Storage Enclosure