Thinkpads Forum

I have both computers, but one thing I'm not happy about is T410 does not supply power via eSATA port while T420 does. Is this a hardware problem or just a feature? Also did checked the security section to see if eSATA is enabled which is does. Meaning can be used.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

It's a feature. The original eSATA standard does not provide power (as it is basically a standard SATA connector which has no power lanes). The T420 has an eSATA+USB combo port, which does carry power (the same 5V that normally would be provided to a USB device).

More reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATAp

Thank you all, this is great forum. I now understand better.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

When I got an eSATA drive for my T410 years ago, I had to buy a "Y" cable to pick up power from the USB port on the right side of the machine. Clunky, but it works.

Thank you dr_st for clarifying that T420 had power built-in (ie: T420 had a more advanced iteration of eSATA), as compared to T410.

We are daily using our T410, and are using a eSATA backup solution for faster data backup, and this requires an external source of power (which to be quite frank is a pain in the a**).

But eSATA is much faster than USB 2.0 data backup speed!

You'll need an "esata-p" cable to supply power to your enclosure, as opposed to an "esata" cable.
Also, you're better off with a "dumb" esata enclosure which does not spin down the drive,
there is less to go wrong.