Faster external drives arriving--slowly

Brace yourself: there are good odds another port will start popping up on PCs soon.

This one is for eSATA, an external version of the technology that's used to connect hard drives inside the PC chassis. Unlike USB and FireWire, eSATA (external Serial ATA) lets external drives communicate at the same speed as internal drives, so the technology would be welcome for those trying to back up digital photo archives or who need added capacity for storing digital music or recording video.

The big question for eSATA now is how widely and quickly it will catch on. But even cautious people in the industry are optimistic that, at a minimum, it will be built into higher-end PCs starting next year.

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