I accidentally plugged my USB mouse into my eSata port... it works?

143

It sounds like you have a USB/eSATA combo port AKA eSATAp. Which enables you to use either the USB or the eSATA on that particular port.

alt text

Picture taken from: techarena's forum.

eSATAp is also known as Power over eSATA or eSATA/USB Combo. eSATAp port combines the strength of both eSATA (high speed) and USB (compatibility) into a single port. eSATAp devices are now capable of being self powered. On a desktop workstation, eSATAp port can supply 12 V to power up a 3.5" hard disk drive (HDD) or a 5.25" DVD-RW without needing separate power source as compared to eSATA and USB 2. On a notebook eSATAp port can supply 5 V to power up a 2.5" HDD/SSD as compared to eSATA. Many notebooks are now equipped with this combo port. A list of notebooks with this new port is available here. eSATAp can be implemented in all machines with a spare SATA port. These machines include PC notebooks, desktops, Apple Mac Pro, and Linux or Unix servers. This makes eSATAp an easy, economical, cross platform solution for external storage.

Serial ATA (Wikipedia).

James Mertz

Posted 2010-09-01T17:10:00.627

Reputation: 24 787

32Damn, that's cool. I couldn't believe the OP's question until I saw your answer. – Spiff – 2010-09-01T17:40:27.460

You're right, it's the Power eSATA. Good info! – MetaGuru – 2010-09-01T17:46:54.403

15Welcome... to the world of tomorrow! – Humphrey Bogart – 2010-09-02T13:24:20.007

Yes! Welcome to the world of tomorrow... (looks at USB-C ports... welp.) – JP Silvashy – 2019-07-17T02:21:29.073

I did this by accident on my Dell Latitude laptop and it fritzed out the screen; I had to reboot. Now I put clear tape over the esata port. – bgmCoder – 2016-03-08T01:32:38.667

7Never heard of such a thing! But how awesome! – BloodPhilia – 2010-09-01T17:24:46.913

24It's a combo port... – Garrett – 2010-09-01T17:35:54.677

I accidentally plugged my USB mouse into my eSata port... it works?

Answers