External SATA has been something sorely lacking in the market, and anyone who uses portable drives often knows how annoying that can be (especially in the PC service industry). A company called Thecus has finally started to solve that very problem, with some of the first external STA storage solutions. Thecus isn't a strange to using external SATA for storage, but other methods don't have an easy way to use on a modern desktop PC. Thecus' “N2050” is now here, though, In order to get functioning SATA that is so far from the motherboard and outside the chassis, particular changes were made to the reference SATA design, such as increasing signal voltage and double-shielding the cables.

Though it currently requires a controller card you need to plug into your computer, (just as how USB and firewire started out), “eSATA” has the distinct advantage over both Firewire and USB of being vastly faster, the same speed as standard SATA. Their currently enclosure for the device, supporting up to 2 drives, looks like just about any other external chassis you could imagine. Ease of use and other such things are left up in the open, until some solid reviews come out. Until then, it looks very interesting. Portability might be an issue because of the controller card that is required to be installed, but if you're looking for a very fast, cheaper-than-external-SCSI solution for storage, it might be worth a look. You can read more about Thecus products here.