Is there anyway to power a SATA drive without a molex cable?

[Kaiju]

The only reason i'm wondering is this review states the only con of the drive is, "Need to use Molex connector if you use included SATA cable."

Review

 

[rpstewart]

It must have come with one of the WD Secure Connect SATA cables I assume. But I thought you could plug a SATA power cable into the back of the WD cable

If you bought one of these drives from OCUK then you won't get any cables so you'll have the option to use either the SATA power or Molex connectors.

 

[meansizzler]

If oyu use the enlcosed SATA cable you have ot use molex power, if you use a standard SATA cable you can use molex or SATA power..

 

[Kaiju]

If oyu use the enlcosed SATA cable you have ot use molex power, if you use a standard SATA cable you can use molex or SATA power..

Why use a SATA power cable/adapter though, when you can just use a molex? Do some drives not have a molex input? If so, why?

 

[Kaiju]

Some SATA drives include a PATA-style 4-pin Molex connector for use with power supplies that lack the SATA power connector.

Adaptors are available to convert a 4-pin Molex connector to SATA power connector. However, because the 4-pin Molex connectors do not provide 3.3 V power, these adapters provide only 5 V and 12 V power and leave the 3.3 V lines disconnected. This precludes the use of such adapters with drives that require 3.3 V power. Understanding this, drive manufacturers have largely left the 3.3 V power lines unused. However, without 3.3 V power, the SATA device may not be able to implement hotplugging as mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Source: Wikipedia

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So, basically you only need to use a SATA adapter if you want your SATA drive to be hot swappable? I've actually tried hot swapping before using only molex and it worked fine, so I'm guessing it's only a precaution.

Still confused though. My Raptor is molex only, fair enough as it's the GD version, but I bought a WD SATA II 320GB a few months ago and that was still only molex. I would've thought that'd be SATA power only.

 

[rpstewart]

All SATA drives have the SATA power connector, it's part of the standard. It's the 13 pin connector next to the data connector.

 

[Kaiju]

All SATA drives have the SATA power connector, it's part of the standard. It's the 13 pin connector next to the data connector.

Ah, on a second look, I now see the SATA power connector.

So I take it's best to use that instead of simply using a molex input? No performance improvement though, heh, just the ability to hot-swap.

 

[rpstewart]

Performance improvement from a power connector? Unfortunately not.

There's no benefit to using them other than to free up PSU molex connections for other devices. The hot swap thing is a sort of benefit but it's designed more for hot swap backplanes in servers. How often would you want to hot swap a drive that's screwed into the PC?

 

[Kaiju]

There's no benefit to using them other than to free up PSU molex connections for other devices.

How often would you want to hot swap a drive that's screwed into the PC?

I thought the SATA power cables run off a molex anyway?

The drives are on rails, not screwed.

 

[rpstewart]

You can get adapters which give you one or two SATA power connectors from a molex but all modern PSUs will come with them directly attached, mine has 6 on 2 looms I think,

 

[Kaiju]

You can get adapters which give you one or two SATA power connectors from a molex but all modern PSUs will come with them directly attached, mine has 6 on 2 looms I think,

Thanks once again for the clarification mate.

 

[Dist]

the reason why the sata power connector is hot swapable (or at least safer the molex to hotswap) is that from what im told, the pins inside the connector are arranged in different positions, instead of inline with eachother, this is so when disconected from a hard drive, it causes certain power lines to be removed first, and the ones that get removed last will be the first to be added when its pluged in again.

im guessing this is so when its removed, it can step down the power isntead of just sudenly stoping the power alltogether, and when its pluged in, it can start up again on low power slightly before raising to full power, instead of jumping right to full power.

i think its because of these precautions on the sata power connector that you can just remove a drive using it at any time (albeit with some data error if its in the process of writing), where as to safely do it with a molex connector you have to use the 'safely remove hard disk' button in windows.

so as far as using molex vs sata connector. if you dont plan on using hotswapping, then just use whatever is easiest for you, like if you are running out of molex connectors, use a sata one, if your sata connectors are all in use, simply use a molex. or just use whatever cable reaches the drive best.

 

[dan_aka_jack]

so - just to confirm... is it safe to remove a "hot" SATA disk like this:

1) unplug the SATA power connector
2) unplug the SATA data cable

And in what order should the drive be installed "hot"? Data cable first and then power cable?

Thanks,
Jack