E - SATA Port

On the front of my pc is a port marked E-SATA, what is this for?

Some external disk enclosures can connect using the e-sata port. This allows for fast data transfers when you compare to the old USB 2.

My P8P67 has one of these ports on rear and I bought an external enclosure that connects usb or e-sata.

A picture from my enclosure

Runs a little bit slower than USB 3.0, but if your system has no USB 3.0 or the external enclosure only has USB 2.0, E-Sata works pretty good. I have several older external enclosures that are USB 2.0 + E-Sata, It was a real boost to speed.

many thank everyone

eSATA is a technology whose time has come and gone. The last machine I have with that kind of interface dates back to 2011-2012. It's slower than USB 3.1 or Thunderbolt and thus isn't used much, if at all, anymore. Here's a useful article about this technology from Lifewire: What Is External SATA (eSATA)?.
HTH,
--Ed--

I still use eSata to Sata cables on my external optical drive which is an internal drive using a super screened cable & works as fast as any of the other internal Sata ports as it is connected to the internal sata ports with my one as using an eSata adapter plate in the PCi slot plate section

I have one as a hard drive caddy & can have external O.S system on it with no problems & full speed.

So still usable.

MisterEd said:

I used to use an enclosure that connected to the computer with eSATA.
When I tested a hard drive internally and externally it showed almost identical read and write speeds. That made sense since both were using internal SATA controller chips on the motherboard.

You are making an incorrect comparison. You are comparing the eSATA speeds from 2012 with the USB 3.1 or Thunderbolt speeds for 2020. If eSATA was still used today the read and write speeds would still be just as fast as internal SATA drives.

The main reason eSATA was dropped is because USB speeds were increased enough that eSATA was no longer as useful. Also it probably save money by eliminating it and adding more USB ports.

Another is that external drives with USB 3.1 or Thunderbolt can have internal drives that are SATA hard drives, SATA SSD drives or NVME SSD drives. This allows all types of drives to only be limited to how fast the USB connections is.

I did a test with a M.2 SATA SSD drive both internally and externally (USB 3.1). The results showed the speeds were about the same whether they were internal or external. The results using USB 3.0 were about 20% slower.

I also did a test with a SATA hard drive connected with USB 3.0. The speeds were much slower than those with SSD drives.

and that's straight from the horse mouth!!

I wonder if he will get it