SlashGear

The original Acer Aspire One has proved a willing and able subject for modders, and the most recent hack makes the 8.9-inch netbook all the more data-friendly with the addition of an eSATA port.  Piggy-backing over the Storage Expansion SD slot, modder tnkgrl used the netbook’s SATA port to wire things up.

The SATA port was free, because tnkgrl had already switched out her Aspire One’s original 8GB SSD with a 60GB hard-drive, hooked up to the PATA interface.  Two versions of the 8.9-inch Aspire One motherboard are out there, the SSD version has the ZIF connector and the HDD version has the standard 2.5-inch SATA connector.

Some basic 2-conductor shielded microphone cable was used to link to where the SATA connector would normally be, and an eSATA socket was taken from an old desktop bracket.  The netbook requires a reboot to recognize any new devices plugged in, seeing as its SATA isn’t hot-swappable.