Is it possible to break a sata drive by plugging it into an esata port

The motherboard has two esata ports. After plugging in five sata drives in various sequences, three would no longer spin up.

I am wondering if the electrical differences would be enough to short them out.

@moab The drives were mounted internally in the case, and powered by the internal PSU, and connected by a standard sata (not esata) cable. A number of different arrangements were tried, to try and identify the problem, so it isn't clear exactly what was plugged in where when they failed.

Paul

Posted 2011-07-06T00:10:50.467

Reputation: 52 173

You might consider editing you question to include exactly how you connected them and what type of cable was used, or enclosure. – Moab – 2011-07-06T00:14:48.687

Answers

Highly unlikely. More likely is static electricity toasting their circuit boards.

surfasb

Posted 2011-07-06T00:10:50.467

Reputation: 21 453

That is good. I want to use these ports for standard sata drives, and was concerned I was breaking them by using them this way. – Paul – 2011-07-07T02:37:56.707

I got 5 drives plug in on a computer also, along with four more plug into a RAID card. You should be ok. Just get a good surge protector. – surfasb – 2011-07-07T04:36:50.617

Ooh. Are you up to RAID 10 with that setup? – Paul – 2011-07-07T14:25:23.513

Nope. JBOD. Just a Bunch of Drives. – surfasb – 2011-07-07T17:16:21.510