Other Powered SATA connector?

zovc

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
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.
 

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King of Cable Management
Sep 26, 2015
775
759
Look for slim SATA or slimline SATA connectors. They are usually used for slimline optical drives in laptops.
 
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zovc

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
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?
 
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EdZ

Virtual Realist
May 11, 2015
1,578
2,107
Commonly referred to as "Mini SATA" (and easily confused with mSATA). Silverstone's CP10 has a nice tidy 90° exit from the header end.
 
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King of Cable Management
Sep 26, 2015
775
759
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.
 
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zovc

King of Cable Management
Original poster
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
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.
 

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King of Cable Management
Sep 26, 2015
775
759
Desktop PSU's will have a 5V rail on them.

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

 
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iFreilicht

FlexATX Authority
Feb 28, 2015
3,243
2,361
freilite.com
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

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,780
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.