hard drive question....

[mr_g]

i have noticed that on pata hard drives there are 10 pins to either set the mode to master, slave, cable select, or single. but on sata hard drives there are 8 pins, i was wondering if they also use master, slave, cable select, and single? what are the 8 pins on sata hard drives for? i thought that the sata raid does all the configuring already and you have to set it in bios.

[Nanometer]

SATA ports have dedicated channels, there is no cable select or slave drives. It's all master.

[mr_g]

then whats the reason for the 8 pins? you can see here for the new wd black hard drives that it has 8 pins.
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=488

[Vatos_locos]

with those you can set a Sata 2 Drive to act as a Sata 1 for older controller