There are a lot of eSATA external drives out there. There is a Western Digital MyBook 500GB external eSATA\USB 2.0 device that is around $200 on the net. Are there any companies developing a way to plug in a eSATA connector to the internal SATA connector of the PS3?

There are a few SATA to eSATA converter cables here: http://www.addonics.com/products/other/

The drive strengths are different for SATA and eSATA, so a cable-only solution will depend on the devices on both ends. It may work, fail, or just be flakey.

Using the 6-inch adapter linked at that page will not cause any problem unless the controller is particularly poor (which is entirely possible given the design considerations). I would be surprised if any issues were encountered if the OP is not using a >1m cable. I'd suspect he'd use that adapter and an 18 inch cable and have plenty of margin.

Using the 6-inch adapter linked at that page will not cause any problem unless the controller is particularly poor (which is entirely possible given the design considerations). I would be surprised if any issues were encountered if the OP is not using a >1m cable. I'd suspect he'd use that adapter and an 18 inch cable and have plenty of margin.

so have you guys tried this yet? This would be a way to get 500GIG of disc space on the PS3..fast disc space.

so have you guys tried this yet? This would be a way to get 500GIG of disc space on the PS3..fast disc space.

I regularly use 2m Infiniband 4X to 4i SATA cables with Silicon Image 3124 & 3132 chipsets. I see no signal integrity issues. I have also gone the other direction, using the 6-inch eSATA to SATA adapter with a Silicon Image 3132 based eSATA HBA with no issues. I have not tried this with a PS3 and do not know what SATA controller they use. I would be very surprised if you had any problems doing this.