RayLopez99 wrote:

I assume this is a joke based on a previous thread in this group.
Since it is unlikely a SATA cable will ever go bad.

How wrong you are, sir.

SATA is a controlled impedance cable. To damage it, all you
have to do, is bend it until it kinks, distorting the dielectric
inside. While the dielectric for both (+) and (-) might be
affected equally, we don't know that in any given case.

SATA has some kind of CRC error check on the packets that
go back and forth on the cable. So at low background
error rates, you're protected (by retransmissions). But CRC
is not infallible, and eventually, data with errors could get through
undetected. The more beat up the cable is, the more likely
an error will get through.

Replacing a SATA cable, remains a valid diagnostic procedure.
And rather than being for the impedance/bending issue, it's
as much for the condition of the contacts on the end. Being
a wafer contact, the substrate can crack and give an intermittent
connection.

We made our first discover of hot plug capability, when a
poster came here, and reported he broke the connector off
his SATA drive. And by holding the cable up against the drive
just right, the drive was re-detected and he could finish
copying off the data before discarding the drive. We have a
history of ham-handed users, and "scientific" discovery :-)
If you run out of ideas, change the cable. It might be a bad
connection.

First generation SATA cables, had no retention features, and
tended to fall off. Requiring users to press them back into
place occasionally. Now, a good SATA connector, has a metal
clamp on it, with tiny teeth, to help hold things in place.
The SATA committee designed this connector system, for
server backplanes, and could not have cared less, about
what their scheme would do for desktop users. It took
engineering backfill, on the supplier side, to fix this
in the second generation.

Occasionally, a SATA connector will rip right out of a motherboard.
Happens on the $50 motherboards, more than anything else.
You can tell as soon as you handle one of those, what's
going to happen to it. Again, more of a first generation
problem. The cheapskates are getting smarter now.

Paul