SATA Hard Drive Cables

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As well as external cabling for peripheral devices, some types of internal components use cabling to attach to a motherboard port.

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment Interface

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) is the standard means of connecting internal storage drives within a desktop PC.

• SATA uses cables of up to 1 m (39 in.) terminated with compact 7-pin connectors
• Each SATA host adapter port supports a single device
• The 7-pin data connector does not supply power
• A separate 15-pin SATA power connector is used to connect the device to the PC’s power supply

• The first commercially available SATA standard supported speeds of up to 150 MBps
• This standard was quickly augmented by SATA revision 2 (300 MBps) and then SATA revision 3 (600 MBps)

Molex Power Connectors

• Internal storage device data cables are unpowered
• While the SATA power connector is the best option for new devices, legacy components connect to the power supply unit (PSU) via a Molex connector
• A Molex connector is usually white or clear plastic and has 4 pins
• The color coding of the wire insulation represents the DC voltage:
  • red (5 VDC)
  • yellow (12 VDC)
  • black (ground)

Note

Some devices might have both SATA and Molex power connectors.

External SATA

There is also an external SATA (eSATA) standard for the attachment of peripheral drives, with a 2 m (78 in.) cable.

• must use an eSATA cable to connect to an external eSATA port
• cannot use an internal SATA cable
• eSATAp is a nonstandard powered port used by some vendors that is compatible with both USB and SATA (with an eSATAp cable)
• The USB interface dominates the external drive market, however