some questions about SATA

[jimvuraot04]

in making custom sata connectors is the fifth orange cable does really matter? just curius cuz IMO why they will put those on power supply right? any advise... thanx... and sorry if im on the wrong section to ask this questions....

[Smithdogg1]

From what I understand the orange cable is a 3.3 Volt wire, and currently very few SATA drives, if any need to utilize the 3.3 Volt line, so you should be fine without it, in fact I have seen a lot of OEM manufactures like HP that have native SATA connectors on their PSU but don’t have the orange wire. I use one of those Molex to 2 SATA connector splitters and it actually has the orange wire on it, but I have used ones without it and not had any issues either. However in the future this wire may become utilized and then you would be screwed so you may want to use it just to be safe. Here is my main source for this info BTW.

http://www.playtool.com/pages/psucon...onnectors.html


You have to be careful about SATA power cables. Some of them are missing the 3.3 volt wire. People with older power supplies often use adapters which convert from 4 pin peripheral cables to SATA power cables. But since 4 pin peripheral connectors only supply 5 and 12 volts, the SATA connector is missing 3.3 volts (there's no orange wire). There are also a few older power supplies which inexplicably have SATA power cables which are missing the 3.3 volt wire. Currently, SATA drives rarely use 3.3 volts. That may be because there are too many people using adapters so the drive makers don't want the headaches which come with using 3.3 volts. But in the future, 3.3 volt drives may become common so you need to be careful when using SATA power cables which don't implement 3.3 volts.

[SoulsCollective]

AFAIK the 3.3V line is needed for SATA hot-swappability, and drives/devices will work fine without it provided you don't intend to hot-swap them.

[Dr_Swizz]

I have two DVD-drives that need the +3.3V line.

[SoulsCollective]

I stand corrected

[jimvuraot04]

i just made some custom wiring w/o the orange and damn all 3 HDD wont operate.... i rewire it together with the orange wire.... now its working fine..... thanx for all the info....