It seems the people in the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) has been brainstorming recently and they have come to the conclusion that external SATA aka eSATA shouldn't need to have a separate power cable. Acting accordingly they have announced the Power Over eSATA initiative which is set to eliminate the power cable from the equation and have both data and power be provided over one Power Over eSATA cable.

The key benefits of Power Over eSATA will be the maintained compatibility with the existing eSATA connector form factor and retain high performance at the current maximum interface transfer rate of 3Gb/s.

“Its fast transfer rate and efficient protocol makes eSATA the highest performing external mainstream storage connection,” said Knut Grimsrud, SATA-IO president and Intel Fellow. “Enhancing eSATA with power delivery will provide a new level of convenience to the designer and the end user. By eliminating the need for a separate power connection, customers can more easily expand their storage, making Serial ATA an even more attractive solution for mainstream storage applications.”

SATA-IO is expecting to have the specification of Power Over eSATA ready in the second half of this year with products supporting it set to be released by the end of 2008.