ThinkCentre M57 (9088-BGU) SATA Connectors

[invictus]

At work I've received a new ThinkCentre M57 tower computer and looking inside I see that in the SATA cluster 3 of them are orange and the 4th one is black. Any reason for this? Sadly the Hardware Maintenance Manual and User Guide are no assistance.

[Shelby Griggs]

The black one is eSATA, for external devices, I think about the same standards EXCEPT the cabling is different, can't hook a SATA cable to an eSATA port.

EDIT: I just received a new M58, the black SATA connector is marked as an eSATA connector. Apparently ONLY the external portion of eSATA connectors are required to be a different plug. I intend to install a 2nd internal optical drive and the goal is to interface to the 'black" eSATA port. This should work, a regular SATA cable will physically plug into the designated eSATA port, so I don't see why this wouldn't work.

SHG