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Why do SATA drives have those tiny pin power plugs
It seems that since the beginning of computers, everything had Molex
plugs and they worked fine. To use a SATA drive, I need an adaptor to convert to those tiny pins on the drive. I almost wonder how enough current can get thru those tiny pins. What gets me most, is why all those pins are needed. The molex is supplying +5v and +12v with two ground wires. Obviously the same voltages are going to the drive, via a much more complex cable plug and in a much more fragile means. I understand the data cables differ greatly on a SATA drive, versus the older IDE types, but the need to change the power plug makes no sense at all. If they need to provide those two voltages to multiple parts of the drive, I'd think they could have done that onboard, on the drive itself, and not required a special adaptor to convert from the 4 pin Molex to this thing (whatever it's called). |
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Why do SATA drives have those tiny pin power plugs
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#4
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Why do SATA drives have those tiny pin power plugs
On Thu, 19 Oct 2017 11:45:37 -0400, Paul wrote:
wrote: It seems that since the beginning of computers, everything had Molex plugs and they worked fine. To use a SATA drive, I need an adaptor to convert to those tiny pins on the drive. I almost wonder how enough current can get thru those tiny pins. What gets me most, is why all those pins are needed. The molex is supplying +5v and +12v with two ground wires. Obviously the same voltages are going to the drive, via a much more complex cable plug and in a much more fragile means. I understand the data cables differ greatly on a SATA drive, versus the older IDE types, but the need to change the power plug makes no sense at all. If they need to provide those two voltages to multiple parts of the drive, I'd think they could have done that onboard, on the drive itself, and not required a special adaptor to convert from the 4 pin Molex to this thing (whatever it's called). The SATA drives were designed for server backplanes. Servers allow "Hot Plug", and IT staff are installing and removing hard drives all day long from the front of the server, while the server remains powered. That's why they have server backplanes and hot plug drive bays. The ThermalTake dock kind of product, uses the backplane connector idea too (drive slides into dock, like the dock was a toaster). Docks can exist today, because of the SATA being designed for server usage. The SATA drive interface, is modeled after this pre-existing scheme. But this connector has way too many contacts for SATA usage. SATA data is a serial bus, whereas this generation of connector used wide parallel buses instead. In typical usage, the SCA drives used a sled with a lever, which did a very nice job of sliding them into place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single...tor_Attachment The SATA connector was designed for servers first, and whatever happened on desktops, hardly mattered. The power section uses the same contact scheme as the data section, so that the insertion force and capture requirements will be similar. The L-shape in the plastic, helps guide it too and prevent flipped insertion. When used to carry power, the SATA contacts are rated at 1 ampere each. 3,3V,5V,12V,GND,GND times three pads each, gives 3 amps on each of those groups. My guess is, the connector is not designed to provide "max power" on the first three items, all at the same time. A 3.5" drive uses 5V,12V. A 2.5" drive (which uses the same connector) uses 5V. There were a few SSDs that used 3.3V only (but they also used the microSATA connector, so don't count). But generally, the 3.3V is hardly used. And a lot of "adapter cables" don't even have 3.3V connected, so your 3.3V SSD wouldn't work anyway. Whereas a SATA power coming straight from the PSU, has all the rails wired up. ******* The Molex is great for hand wiring. It has a high current rating. But it's not suitable for backplane usage. And the SATAIO organization had "server on the brain" when they did the SATA spec. Paul Interesting. I know it's not getting 3.3 volts because it's power comes from an adaptor on a Molex plug. What you are saying about it being made to slide into a rail, makes sense. I can see that being easy to do. Plugging/unplugging a HDD with the power LIVE seems risky at the least though. I would not even consider doing that. I will say that I do like the data cable setup on the SATA drives. No jumpers is a big plus, and those cables are a lot easier to plug in. But if you ask me, the power plugs are harder to get into the slot, especially inside a dark tower case. I was sort of wondering about those slide in drive bays. That would make life easier on me, and I would not have to leave my tower case open all the time, because I regularly swap drives. What I have is a large drive with XP on it. But recently I decided to install PC Linux OS (2009 version for 32 bit). I am not a real linux user, in fact most linux distros wont work or I just cant understand them. But I kind of like this old one, and it's handy for certain things. I was not willing to let Linux wreck my XP setup (dual booting), even though it's supposed to work. Having XP on one drive and Linux on the other is much preferred. I just have to keep changing the drives all the time. What i have now, is that both drives have a power cable on them, so I only have to change the data cable. But a plug in rail would be nice, and I could close the case for once. |
#5
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Why do SATA drives have those tiny pin power plugs
On Thu, 19 Oct 2017 15:18:08 -0500, wrote:
What you are saying about it being made to slide into a rail, makes sense. I can see that being easy to do. Plugging/unplugging a HDD with the power LIVE seems risky at the least though. I would not even consider doing that. I will say that I do like the data cable setup on the SATA drives. No jumpers is a big plus, and those cables are a lot easier to plug in. But if you ask me, the power plugs are harder to get into the slot, especially inside a dark tower case. I was sort of wondering about those slide in drive bays. That would make life easier on me, and I would not have to leave my tower case open all the time, because I regularly swap drives. What I have is a large drive with XP on it. But recently I decided to install PC Linux OS (2009 version for 32 bit). I am not a real linux user, in fact most linux distros wont work or I just cant understand them. But I kind of like this old one, and it's handy for certain things. I use an Icy-dock device. It fits directly into one of the large openings for an optical drive, and has a slot so you simply insert a SATA drive and the connections are made without any cable juggling. It makes swapping drives simple. I use a third party program called HotSwap (http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm) just to ensure the drive being removed is OK to pull. |
#6
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Why do SATA drives have those tiny pin power plugs
On Thu, 19 Oct 2017 16:28:51 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir
wrote: On Thu, 19 Oct 2017 15:18:08 -0500, wrote: What you are saying about it being made to slide into a rail, makes sense. I can see that being easy to do. Plugging/unplugging a HDD with the power LIVE seems risky at the least though. I would not even consider doing that. I will say that I do like the data cable setup on the SATA drives. No jumpers is a big plus, and those cables are a lot easier to plug in. But if you ask me, the power plugs are harder to get into the slot, especially inside a dark tower case. I was sort of wondering about those slide in drive bays. That would make life easier on me, and I would not have to leave my tower case open all the time, because I regularly swap drives. What I have is a large drive with XP on it. But recently I decided to install PC Linux OS (2009 version for 32 bit). I am not a real linux user, in fact most linux distros wont work or I just cant understand them. But I kind of like this old one, and it's handy for certain things. I use an Icy-dock device. It fits directly into one of the large openings for an optical drive, and has a slot so you simply insert a SATA drive and the connections are made without any cable juggling. It makes swapping drives simple. I use a third party program called HotSwap (http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm) just to ensure the drive being removed is OK to pull. I assume Icy Dock is the product name. That sounds like what I want. I wont need to hot swap though. Both drives contain an operating system so I'll have to shutdown and reboot anyhow. Thanks |
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