Will e-SATA take the place of USB ports?

16x HDDVD-R burner? LOL! By the time they get those out we'll have the NEXT external system coming out I think

Yikes... These are vastly different technologies here. FireWire and USB 2.0 are high-speed peripheral buses. They can handle anything from mass storage to networking to audio devices to output devices like printers and input devices like keyboards. eSATA is electronically identical to SATA and is designed strictly for mass storage.

In addition, FireWire buses are capable of supporting 63 devices each. USB 2.0 buses support 127. Each SATA port can only support one drive.

USB can supply power - can eSata?

no

This is kind of a good article though. Anybody remember old flavours of SCSI? It was used not only for hard drives, but also for optical drives all the way back to the original CD-ROM's, as well as scanners, & printers. eSATA *could* be the next external standard. A system would need to maintain regular USB for things like keyboards and mice, and anything else that requires self-powering via the port but doesn't require super-high-speeds. Perhaps eSATA 2.0 will support some kind of power channel to have it power those drool-worthy HD-DVD-RW drives and high speed 90000dpi scanners, but I'm holding on to the hope that Wireless-USB will not be a complete dud.

So much for taking over....one device at a time...external power source...used mainly for storage....yeah right....Someday I'll give up usb...maybe when a wireless usb exist....Oh NO...someone's gonna steal my idea...damn it...oh well...

geno 888, as a long-time member of CD Freaks, you should already now that it is very unlikely that Blu-ray drives/discs would ever reach 16x CAV reading/recording speed due to physical limitations. In fact, 12x CAV is considerd maximum practical limit at the time being, and we will have to wait for actual models for some time. As for HD DVD, 9x is the limit. 12 x 36 = 432 mbps (max) or 54 MiB/s. Do we still need eSATA for external optics? Well, think again.

This is what will be. USB and Firewire will still be around for a long time, the speed is verry high, it is well proven, working on lots of systems. Besides most addons that use USB2 (firewire800) don't need eSATA. BUT eSATA will become the future standard of connecting addons that require heavy transfer systems. Like for example, harddriver, HD PVR system perhaps, DVD Burners, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray burners, and so on. Even so eSATA is more expencive than USB2. Just as Firewire800 is more expencive than USB2. I think most users prefers USB2 and that eSATA is more likley to replace FireWire800 (at least on the PC platform). Firewire is a good system but the spreading of it has been limited compared to USB and it will probably die out in the end. Even if eSATA becomes popular I don't think we will se a great deal of it integrated on motherboards, more in the form of addon cards.

@Dennis_Olof "Even if eSATA becomes popular I don't think we will se a great deal of it integrated on motherboards, more in the form of addon cards." Of course if any one, Abit already started integrating it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowImage.asp?Image=13%2D127%2D011%2D02%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D03%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011 %2D04%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D05%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D06%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D07% 2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D09%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D10%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D08%2Ejpg% 2C13%2D127%2D011%2D12%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D11%2Ejpg%2C13%2D127%2D011%2D13%2Ejpg&CurIma ge=13%2D127%2D011%2D03%2Ejpg&Description=ABIT+AW9D%2DMAX+Socket+T+%28LGA+775%29+Intel+975X +ATX+Intel+Motherboard+%2D+Retail