Will PCI eSATA Card provide support for AHCI / Hotswapping?

I have an old computer gathering dust that I would like to use for a project. It has two SATA headers on the mainboard. The harddrive controller is Intel 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family). From the research I have done, this controller does not support AHCI. The bios also indicates that AHCI is not supported: on the SATA configuration, it is only possible to select IDE, SATA, or Automatic.

My objective is to use an old SATA harddrive as a hotswappable drive, but without an AHCI-capable mainboard will this be possible? I was considering the following

(Mainboard) <--> (eSATA PCI card) <--> (eSATA to SATA cable) ↔ (SATA HDD)

The harddrive will be powered by a molex extension. The harddrive will sit outside the computer, thus I would prefer to use eSATA. The computer will be running Win7Pro SP1 64bit.

My question is: Would an eSATA PCI card in and of itself support AHCI, or must the motherboard also support AHCI for hotswapping to work reliably?

Here are some of the eSATA PCI cards I am considering:

InLine: http://www.amazon.co.uk/InLine-3-Channel-Interface-Card-eSATA/dp/B000WKSM44
Digitus: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Digitus-Internal-External-eSATA-Controller/dp/B001BG0D8Q
Delock: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delock-HDD-Controller-eSATA-RAID/dp/B000YATKCK

The InLine uses the VIA VT6421 chipset. I haven't been able to conclusively determine if this supports AHCI.
The Digitus uses the Sil 3114 chipset which seems to support AHCI.
The Delock probably also uses the Sil 3114 chipset, although I am not sure as the link on the Delock site doesn't work.

In any case, the question remains: Will a PCI card that supports AHCI enable hotswapping on a computer that doesn't have an AHCI capable mainboard?

The SATA controller on the card has to support AHCI. I'm not sure why you are doing eSATA -> SATA when there are internal SATA controllers.

I'd take a guess that most PCI cards are going to not have AHCI, especially with IDE on board. They are going to be very old.

EDIT: The base version of ICH7 does not have AHCI, but the R version (RAID) does.

thideras said:

I'm not sure why you are doing eSATA -> SATA when there are internal SATA controllers.

Click to expand...

The internal SATA controllers don't support AHCI --the computer has the ICH7 controller not the ICH7-M or raid version.

I'm talking about a card that has internal SATA connectors, not the onboard ones.