Other Powered SATA connector?

[zovc]

Hey!

I noticed this a while back when I was working on a prebuilt machine for work. (We're a small operation, I'm the "computer guy", we order prebuilts from a dealer to bundle with other things we sell, having a warranty through a dealer leads to better security/value for us than assembling things ourselves) Another one of the optical drives didn't line up with the front cover of the inwin ITX case, so I opened it up and straightened it out myself.

While I was in there I rediscovered this SATA connector and wanted to ask about it. It's got a two wires for power and a SATA cable paired into one header. The two wires for power look like they terminate into something similar to a fan power header, and in this case they're connected to a 4-pin power connector coming off of the SSD's SATA power cable.

Here are pictures:


Could I get access to these cables? Are there more tidy ways to cable these than worrying about big SATA power connectors and their four wires?

Either way, I thought it was interesting.

 

[|||]

Look for slim SATA or slimline SATA connectors. They are usually used for slimline optical drives in laptops.

 

[zovc]

Look for slim SATA or slimline SATA connectors. They are usually used for slimline optical drives in laptops.

What would I need to acommodate those power connectors in a 'desktop' component based build? Is that just a fan power header?

 

[EdZ]

Commonly referred to as "Mini SATA" (and easily confused with mSATA). Silverstone's CP10 has a nice tidy 90° exit from the header end.

 

[|||]

What would I need to acommodate those power connectors in a 'desktop' component based build? Is that just a fan power header?

They are using a fan header as an interface, but they have it wired up with both 12V and 5V like a 4-pin Mate-N-Lok. The drive will use 5V (red wire), which isn't present on a typical fan header.

 

[zovc]

Will all (or most) SATA drives be able to work off of the 5V, or is that mostly just optical drives that use the 5V? I'm assuming using a fan header's 12V would be a no-no.

Is there anywhere on a conventional (desktop-grade?) motherboard that could be used for the 5V? I'm guessing the other cable is ground?

That Silverstone cable is cool, @EdZ. I wish there were more pictures (on their product page, at least) so I could figure out which 'side' the 90-degree cable was coming out of.

 

[|||]

Desktop PSU's will have a 5V rail on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molex_connector

 

[iFreilicht]

Will all (or most) SATA drives be able to work off of the 5V, or is that mostly just optical drives that use the 5V? I'm assuming using a fan header's 12V would be a no-no.

2.5" drives all work off 5V exclusively from what I know. 3.5" drives commonly use 12V as well. 3.3V was removed from the SATA spec recently, so no need to worry about that.

 

[jeshikat]

It's always a good idea to double-check, but I believe the only SATA drives that still take 3.3V are 1.8" HDDs.