Should I buy a generic SATA cable?

Soldato
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By generic, you mean no identifiable manufacturer? Most SATA cables are identical, there is no advantage in buying for SATA II or III. Personally I like the thin round ones with one end right angled.
 
Soldato
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By generic, you mean no identifiable manufacturer? Most SATA cables are identical, there is no advantage in buying for SATA II or III. Personally I like the thin round ones with one end right angled.

Do you know any good store that sells them for cheap?

The cheapest I seen them or is £3.30 for the really thin ones.
 
Soldato
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Be warned that some can be of poor construct, had a batch i had to return as they kept dropping HDDs and corrupting data, likely poor conductors or soldering etc.. Also really nasty ones can either be a bastich to fit or fit too easily and fall out eventually as the connectors are poorly molded.
 
Caporegime
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Co Durham
Be warned that some can be of poor construct, had a batch i had to return as they kept dropping HDDs and corrupting data, likely poor conductors or soldering etc.. Also really nasty ones can either be a bastich to fit or fit too easily and fall out eventually as the connectors are poorly molded.

This. I have had cheap and nasty ones fall to peices before now and I have lost drives.

Better to spend an extra quid or two on a half decent one IMO
 

G J

G J

Associate
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3 Oct 2008
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After buying 2 cheep generic/unbranded SATA cables as I needed ones with a right angle connectors, 1 of them failed a while back now after causing the drive to rarely kill itself and the way to recover the data was running testdisk on a 1TB drive for about 4-5 hours. :( After switching the cable it not happened since.

The other I've just thrown away as it started to cause a high number of SMART (C7) Ultra DMA CRC error count's (Can be caused by bad cables) and random crashing on a drive. Again after switching the cable it not happened since although now after about a year I have to RMA the drive as it's now got bad sectors on it :(

So cheeper one's can work fine without any problems but from my experience they may not last long. Strange as I've never had any issue with cables included with motherboards. :confused:
 
Last edited:
Caporegime
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20 Jan 2005
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Co Durham
Like I said, some are really. really cheaply made. The last cheap one I bought, the end fell in half as I plugged it in............

Doesn't inspire confidence.
 
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