Is there any way to add external esata to a late 2010 13" macbook pro?

Just wondering if anyone has bothered/cared to figure a way to do this?

Firewire is great, but eSATA would be exceptional for external storage.

Would be really nice to be able to use a esata compact flash card reader!

 

No, there is no way to add eSATA to a 2010 13" MBP (or any 2010/2011 MBP). That would require a card reader and Apple took those out in 2009 or 2010 (I don't remember) meaning that whatever ports the MBP comes with, that is it. People with 2011 MBPs might get the ability to work with eSATA but companies have yet to release any type of adapter. If anything, I expect USB 3.0 would be their main focus since it is becoming more widespread than eSATA.

 

*17" still has express 34

for the other sized laptops you'll need to wait a bit longer for a thunderbolt solution going to an external drive (toaster, external HDD housing, etc). I think there may be one or two such external drive housings now but these particular housings are not usually something you'd use for backups etc.

I'm sure we'll also see some thunderbolt to eSata or USB3.0 adapters sometime soon for working with existing external devices such as those that accept those connections.

*There is this: http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10549

But its not out yet. Likely will be expensive. And it isn't as elegant a solution as a toaster HDD connection where you can easily rotate among multiple bare HDD backup drives. There will be other solutions out soon I hope for thunderbolt connections to external bare HDDs

 

It does? I thought Apple took that out and that is why people were crying about it or did they just remove it from the 15" models? Either way, the 13" MBP doesn't have any port expansion options aside from going through Thunderbolt.

 

So no jerry rigging or some kind of off brand solution for late 2010 macbook pro huh? Shucks.

 

yeah, they removed the expansion port from all MBPs except for the 17". So if you don't have the 17" you are forced to wait for a good thunderbolt solution.

17" Connections and expansion:
MagSafe power port
Gigabit Ethernet port
FireWire 800 port (up to 800 Mbps)
Three USB 2.0 ports (up to 480 Mbps)
Thunderbolt port (up to 10 Gbps)
Audio line in
Audio line out
ExpressCard/34 slot
Kensington lock slot

But the good news for all is that the thunderbolt has a much larger bandwidth than SATA II. The expansion card slot was essential on earlier Macs for fast transfer rates to an external drive. But I think it will be kind of obsolete when the thunderbolt devices and adapters start to emerge.

For jerry rigging, it is conceivable that someone could remove their internal optical disk drive and find an adapter that goes from the Mac's internal SATA connection that was meant for the ODD (it may be some strange Apple proprietary SATA connection though since it is a small ribbon cable if I remember correctly) to a thin enough eSata cable that could perhaps fit through the open disc slot on the side of the mac... awkward and it may require modding the case to allow that cable to fit through the slot. Plus you'd have to find an adapter IF there is one> * so basically that brings you back to waiting for a good thunderbolt adapter or thunderbolt capable external device.

 

No thunderbolt for me. late 2010 13" macbook pro here.

They are phasing out firewire solutions as we speak! You can't even get a firewire 800 card reader now as they are discontinued and the individuals who saw this coming and have many stock piled are charging 20x what they cost when they were being manufactured!

Although I did find this neat instructable that shows how to make your own firewire 800 card reader (although I am not sure I want to buy some portable hdd just to gut it for this solution seems pricy):

http://www.instructables.com/id/FireWire-800-CF-Card-Reader/

Maybe it's time to sell and upgrade. Meh, I just upgraded the hdd to solid state and the ram to 8gb.

I could see something that goes through the sdcard slot as far as jerry rigging goes. I never use that port anyway.

 

But transfer speeds through the SD card slot likely won't be anywhere near what eSATA can provide. The funny thing is that I think FireWire 800 is making a comeback with external hard drives. I was at Best Buy looking to purchase a new 1TB portable external hard drive (for my 2011 MBP). The majority of hard drives there used either USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 but there were a rather large shelf full that used FireWire 800. The Seagate portable hard drive that I picked up was on sale and I paid $20 more for their FireWire 800 adapter. It is kind of interesting as the hard drive is powered off of the FireWire 800 connection as well (or USB 2.0/3.0). There were other models from Seagate and Western Digital (portable and non-portable for Seagate, only non-portable for Western Digital) that offered FireWire 800 as well. I think more companies are supporting FireWire 800 now as Mac sales continue to increase.

So it is strange that nobody is making FireWire 800 card readers these days when hard drive manufacturers seem to be doing the opposite. Of course, you could always modify your MBP as stated above but keep in mind that doing so would void any warranty as Apple states that only the hard drive and RAM are user replaceable, messing with anything else will void the warranty.

 

Oh I was thinking more along the lines of the cable for the internal esata referred to by the previous poster from removing the OPD could come out of the case through the SD card opening instead of having to cut your case in some way.

 

same thing here in Canada, but our local store manager said BB got them really cheap and are just dumping them as sales have been way down on the for years. he may be wrong but I have to say I believe him

 

I really don't see very much of a future for eSATA ports, since USB 3.0 will become absolutely universal in 2013 and so many people back up data to the cloud or over a wireless network. Heck, even Thunderbolt looks like it might have a modest future? Sure it's pricey, but the sort of people buying Macs are affluent.

Was Apple premature in killing off the Expresscard slot on everything smaller than a Macbook Pro 17 inch? Probably not. I can remember using various PCMIA slots back in the early 2000s, but I don't think I've ever used an Expresscard slot for anything.

 

Do you have a statistic other than some advertisement saying that USB 3.0 will become "absolutely universal" in 2 years? I would say that its support is currently pretty widespread now but it won't go anywhere unless it is adopted not only by PC manufacturers (this includes Apple) but accessory and device manufacturers. USB 3.0 won't really be universal until I can easily buy a notebook/desktop that offers plenty of ports, flash drives that are USB 3.0, digital cameras that offer that connection, external hard drive, external optical drives (such as a Blu-ray burner), smartphones, and portable media players. Essentially the entire industry would need to adopt USB 3.0 just as it has adopted USB 2.0 in order for it to become "absolutely universal" and I can already tell you that isn't going to happen in 2 years (unless there was some miraculous shift in technology).

I agree that eSATA has a limited future since it has been shrouded by USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, and even USB 2.0 (which hasn't gone anywhere) it is impossible to say that USB 3.0 will become an absolute universal connection in two years. If you listened to Intel and Apple, they would say the same thing about Thunderbolt. If you listened to Intel and Dell, they would say that USB 3.0 is where it is at. If you listened to Sony, they would be somewhere in the middle since they too have adopted Thunderbolt (but are calling it something different) with one of their notebooks.