The SATA connector is underengineered for the stress that can be pent up in the cable.
This is very annoying when it happens because to try and get the manufacturer to replace it is more trouble than its worth (supply pictures, etc, because they have neer heard of it). At least I can use the drive but have to be very careful every time I slide out its holder (and now every other to not create more) in the Antec Take 4 Rack case.
Other annoying mechanical engineering designs are:
- DBxx connectors = get snagged on any other cable with which they come in contant, and difficult-to-use finger screws with adjacent DB connectors.
- RJxx connectors = ditto, except that the locking lever will break on one of those occasions. Even the shrouded ones are a nuisance because they can be very difficult to remove because of the amount of finely directed finger pressure required to deform the shroud enough to actually push the lever. The best seem to be those with side walls but not a covering shroud - fingers can get to the lever but other cables cannot snag it.
- wide IDE connectors = where there is no pull tab on the cable as pins at one end will get bent as one of the attempts will pull out one end more than the other. Cables will become flakey if manipulated too many times to get them routed around a case.
- most modern compact connectors = resulting from trying to reduce the connector face area on laptops, etc, but forgetting the transmission requirements that dictate a certain minimum cable size and stiffness. Examples are 4pin 1394 and DisplayPort (mini especially).
- consumer audio cables and connections = resulting from trying to reduce the cable weight (opposite of the previous annoyance) so that use will cause the cheap cable or junction to fail before the expensive equipment does.
Basically, most problems result from the mistaken belief of the designers that the connectors will only one be used once at initial installation, forgetting that one of the reasons to have connectors rather than permanent soldering is to be able to change them around as circumstances change.
I've found the SATA connectors to be the flimsiest of any by far... I live in India where dust is a real issue so that might elevate my problems. I have had problems with my RAID 0 array where my computer would refuse to boot even though the controller was detecting both the drives. A quick chkdsk from the windows cd would solve the problem. In the end i realized that it was the SATA connectors/cables that was the problem. Changed both the cables and voila problem solved. I've encountered the same problem one more time. Space is not really much of an issue on my pc and the cables dont have much stress on them, I guess. But its really frustrating to have a problem like this... takes days to figure out what is really going on.
Good article, it makes you think about what you are doing when you stick your hands in hundreds of dollars of computer investment. As always, planning ahead will always save you time and money on anything, not just a computer build. For those linked here by newegg, I just bought a P182 and I love it; a good solid quiet case. While, I understand the choice of using the bottom HD tray for this demonstration (SATA connector failure/choice); the primary HD bay is in the top compartment. Unless you have super long video cards, this is where the main HD should go. In this compartment a straight cable will work fine. It is always a good to have many different types of connectors on hand (PSU extender cables, 90 deg SATA, etc).
This is funny. This same thing happened to me about 2 years ago when I installed my very first and very new SATAII HD. I got out a flashlight and my pliers....lined up the pins and just pushing the cable with broken interface still on it, back into the HD. Then I glued that b*tch right back on there. Has worked ever since and with no problems. Next time I will throw the piece of crap away and buy a new one.
Yes we can find fault with the SATA mechanical design spec - the one for desktop drives is totally inadequate for the environment since it is the same as for notebook drives where the drive is installed once and generally stays there 'til it dies. Using notebook connectors in a desktop environment is absurd!
. The power and data connection should be totally surrounded by plastic on the desktop drives like the mobo and drive connectors for PATA cables. That would up the strength by at least an order of magnitude - nothing stopping you from super gluing a slab of plastic along underneath your drive's connectors. The cables will still fit and and you'll have added breakage protection. And for those who haven't broken their connectors yet, here is a cable set that will add a bit of strength for you non-WD drive owners:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... too bad they didn't add the metal "SATA 2" latches - I guess it was just easier to use the notebook female connector (comes in many colors but I've only seen them under this brand name). Use this plus gluing on a bottom rail for double protection. WD offers a similar cable for their SATA drives only.
. Another option is to get a "Kublai Kage" (c) 2007 by me for your case - it comes with four, plastic, slide-in trays for the drives. It comes with the Silverstone Kublai cases (see my review of the KL01 here: http://www.techimo.com/articles/">http://www.techimo.com/articles/ -for pix) and will soon be available separately as the SST-CFP52 and you can get up to four of the SATA hot-swap brackets (SST-CP05) for the cage (the Kublai cases come with only one of them. One place has the CP05s now for $8.00 each, though list is supposed to be $5.00. Since you won't be manually plugging/unplugging and the connections are fairly well concealed, damage should be unlikely. $40.00 total for the Kage and 4 brackets makes this the least expensive SATA hot-swap solution available and will fit most any case with 3 free 5" bays. .bh.
Ryan i LOLed when i read your article, because the exact same thing has happened to me with that exact same case (well P180B, but w/e ;P). Really ticked me off because it ruined my brand new Seagate 500GB Barracuda, and that was back when they were new and $200, not the $100 that they are now.
After looking back at my situation i was dumb and threw the black sliver of plastic that fell off away, after realizing this is integral to securing and completing the SATA connection i attempted to superglue the cable to the SATA pins on the drive.....this causes the board to have a short circuit and thus it will not turn on. I have resigned myself to the fact that the perfectly new unused drive is junk. I have thought about seeing if i can RMA though Seagates cross ship warranty process, but i think they only cover internal failures as opposed to physical damage.
Anyway my methodology for drive installation in the P18x is:
A) Screw the drives into the drive cage
B) Connect the SATA connectors to the drives
C) Hold the cage over the slot that it goes into and let the SATA cables drop down into the drive bay area
D) Slowly lower the drive cage into the drive bay while threading the SATA cables through the cord exit that leads into the main case area that holds the motherboard.
E) Connect the SATA cables to the motherboard.
You have to work gingerly, its all about lowering the drive cage into the bay slowly, and making sure a power connector doesn't get caught on tension and push into one of the data connectors. If you force it down or let it drop in on its own weight the drives farthest to the bottom will likely snap the back of their SATA connectors and the upper ones will have strained plastic around the connector. Just hold the drive cage by the little keyring looking thing and slowly lower it and you will be good ;P
and I sent into WD and they fixed it! I have since bought the latch on connectors and use the angled ones if need be. I continue to buy WD drives these days because of the customer support given. They RMA'd the drive and sent it back, good as new. If anyone has a WD drive you may be able to get it fixed, its worth a shot. The worst they can say is no.
Can you do a writeup on the ridiculous disconnect between motherboard and case manufacturers on power switch/front panel connectors next? The hideous lack of standardization has consistently been one of the biggest hassles of building a new PC for years.
I've broken off a couple SATA tabs on the drive side myself. It's exactly as you described in that they work fine, they just don't suffer a user's abuse like a PATA would.
Luckily, it's almost always going to be fixable. You guys 'Macgyvered' it with tape, my solution was to treat the tab as part of the connector cable as well, only I used glue.
I glued the tab first to the cable, then glued the other end back to the drive where it broke off from. It's not elegant, but it's as durable as it was before and there's no chance I'll lose the cable that connects that particular drive!
Yeah, I had the same concerns when I built two of my P180b rigs.
I placed four disks at the bottom (coz I use the upper HD chamber to cool the video cards). I had to carefully bend them (it was so tedious).
As a case in point (no pun intended), I see many posts here from people who had the same problem with the Antec 180. IMO, case makers spend too much time focusing on the CPU/graphics cooling in their case, and not enough time on the welfare of the drives... Most drive bays look like an afterthought, with plastic parts and so-so ventilation... When you consider that the data you store can easily be worth many times the entire computer, and is NOT replaceable like a hardware part, the drive bays should be the most engineered part of a case... Yes, backup solutions are necessary, but case makers need to give the drive bays more love...
For the most part I have just used the red SATA cables that come with most motherboards, optical drives, etc; and I assumed the lack of flexibility was a result of the design. Then I picked up a WD drive on Black Friday for a system at work, and the included cable was MUCH more flexible than the average ones I have used. Is there a reason these are not more widespread? Are they more expensive? Is there a reason the cable can't be round like FireWire to allow equal flexibility in all directions?
Now Ryan, you know breaking things should just be left by playing UT but I guess we can forgive you this time. :)
This is always good to know since I just obtained a setup that untilizes these types of connectors. And not to mention, UPS is not nice on equipment. Hence the reason why I had so many issues getting this box up and running. I thought these types of connectors where chincy at best. Maybe a different type of connector all together? Hrm, maybe I found my money maker...
I had this happen installing(read: jerry rigging) a 500gb seagate into my GX260 slimline home server. I managed to fix it by super gluing the wafer back into place.
Funny, I have been cursing SATA connections for the past few days working on a couple systems.
I am seriously surprised that the industry somehow thought this was a good connection mechanism. Sometimes due to video cards and other add-in's and the location of the drive cage coupled with the onboard controller, passing a sata cable to the drive becomes very difficult and even an unreliable fit. The cable only wants to bend in one axis. Yesterday looking at my machine one of my drive letters disappeared, after a check in eventvwr the drive apparently disconnected itself while I was sleeping (probably temperature fluctuations), I found it was a flaky SATA connection.
SATA connections seem very flimsy to me in general, having anything but a straight shot, or a bend in only one axis on the cable, to the slot makes them appear very unreliable and unsure at best.
Whoever thought this was a good connecting mechanism was really foolish, if I didn't have several bad experiences w/ sata I couldn't really say that. I'll take IDE over the unsure SATA anyday. I may have bent a pin in the last decade but never a critical issue. Some locking mechanism, and/or more flexible cable, is a no-brainer. The stupidity of some smart people can be surpising at times as with the sata cable and connection mechanism.
The same thing happened to me a couple of days ago. I was able to put the connector back and hoped for the best. Luckily, the pc still recognized the drive; however I'm afraid to move or do anything inside the pc in fear of disconnecting it.
i tracked several "unreliable computer" problems to bad sata cables ... the computers would just reboot or crash whithout reason once in a while .. i found a broken plastic part like yours in one case but 4 others were not broken but just bellied out .. i figure that plastic bulge problem reduces contact pressure thus reliability .. my configuration has no undue stress on the cable and no excessive heat .. i saw 5 failures in less than a year (even different cable/drive manufacturers).. some systems would only fail once a week or even a month. just rebooting would fix them for another period .. after changing the cables to the new ones with the metal clips i had no more failures. that cured a lot of frustrating problems .. i reported this to a large local computer store/repair center .. but they didnt believe what i was telling them .. however they did admit that they had seen several early sata drive failures .. they just replaced the drives (and cables) often at customer expense .. i think the plastic lip on the sata cable is just too thin to handle constant contact force. it needs stronger plastic or a reinforcment like the metal clip to maintain contact force over life .. now whenever i see a "bad" or intermittant sata drive i just change the cable and that often fixes the problem. the store still sells the old type cables that dont have the metal tab .. although the improved ones are also in stock .. if you dont know about the problem then you might be buying trouble a few months down the road. i heard that one big computer manufacturer was sending new (but not improved) sata cables to customers that had intermittant conditions. the new cables would work for a year or so and fail again ..
I have broken the SATA power connector on my HDD AND on my power supply connection, when trying to install 4 HDDs in the lower bay of a P180.
I think both the Data and Power SATA connections are fundamentally flawed and no matter how much they 'update' them there is no way to make them good.
An example of an extremely reliable and robust serial connector is the ubiquitous USB plug. The USB plug is so simple to plug and unplug, yet is robust and it doesn't become accidentally unplugged! Why bother to re-invent the wheel?
I did the same thing with 3 drives no less 2 320GB Segates and 1 500GB Hitachi on my new system build into my new pc using the lower drive bay because the upper was impeding the 8800Ultra.
I fried a 12v ground power trace on one of the drives, chipped off part of the sata connector on another and just snapped off the other one like you did. My problem was that the 500gb was to be my main drive so I tried to use a connector like your blue one with the power and the SATA conector on one plug but the problem was the pc is moved around alot and the connector would lose contact with the gold pins so I took an SATA cable and broke the plastic guard arround the pins. I took my dremel and I cut out the area leading to the pins on the board. I unsoldiered it and then I took the cable and soldered it directly to the board all 6 contacts and then I secured the cable with a metal bracket i cut to size from the back plate drilled small holes in the plate and drive and screwed it in place to hold the cable in place and to stop it flexing. Now it works great.
It seems that the major flaw of the proprietary WD "SecureConnect" cable is that it covers the SARA power connector, requiring you to use the 12v connector. Taking away your choice is a problem in some situations. For instance: My legacy-free, super-mini PC chassis expects your SATA drive to use the provided SATA power connector.
I've got four HDs in the lower HD cage on my P180. It definitely took a bit of work to get all the cable to lay in place without rubbing against the fan or bending the cables too tightly.
But it can be done. Just don't try to force things...
I've had the same thing happen to me, but with the SATA power cable instead of the data cable. Fortunately, the drive (A WD 250 GB SE16) had a backup molex power adapter. Wish manufacturers included this as a standard (current WD models have dispensed with them).
My opinion is that the SATA connector is fundamentally flawed by design. It is too thin and fragile, and the little right angle hanging off the end is just a disaster waiting to happen.
I wouldn't go back to PATA for the world, but I wouldn't mind seeing a more robust design, even if it means having to switch cables.
I had this idea the other day, looking at a CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 case. It has a section with pull-out drive enclosures for the hard drives, at the bottom, which undoubtedly would require right-angle SATA cables. If people would be willing to pay slightly more, why not make a variant model with an SATA-II compliant backplane? Put both the SATA and SATA power connectors, lined up for the drive cages, behind the drive cage. Then, past the drive, provide the same connector as on the mother board / back of drive for the user to connect up the SATA data cables and power cables.
Nothing fancy like in a server, where you maybe have one incoming power lead, just a circuit board with a series of traces to carry the power and data to the drives.
Charge a bit more for that model, or maybe find a way to make it an end user installable accessory...
Help people avoid the situation the article talks about.
Well crazy glue just worked for me yesterday guys, i also notice i had damage the SATA cable and that's why the drive was not being recognised. Make sure you inspect the cable conector for the little contact wires. I manage to get my stuff out and will use the handicap HD in an enclusure as my external to take info around to a friends house when i need it.
Thanks for the article anand, hopefully manufaturers will beef up the plastic on the connectors from now on.
First, remove the lower fan from the P180--the PSU will be able to handle exhausting it's own heat and the airflow will be enough to keep the HDs cool enough, that's the point of the separate chambers.
Secondly, the complaint about the HD orientation and the half shroud on the port connector is invalid. Flip the HD. Derr, it's fixed!
In the fall of 2004, I bought a 74GB WD Raptor. As I had not had any SATA devices before, I just did what I normally do: shove the thing in! To my horrible discovery, I had broken the SATA connection on the WD... :(
Luckily, I too had some McGyver tape handy, and I've used it ever since...
Still, makes you wonder why they can't spec the type of plastic used on the the SATA device to keep the connection from breaking... I thought they would be AT LEAST as durable as PATA, I mean, come on? Newer tech should be better then old tech in all aspects.
It happened to me five years ago with the first motherboard I had with SATA option. Conector broke on the motherboard side. Having two HDD and two connectors I had no options, found the plastic piece and mended as you did. With luck and care, the board worked for four and a half years. A short life for a system, I never found out if the crippled connector shortened the life of the board. I actually unhooked and hooked the connector a few times through this time. My new systems have SATA connectors and I allways use latched ones.
Due to the lack of space at the bottom of the p182 case, I put my 2 hard drives in the middle bay, above the floppy bay.
I also moved the fan from the bottom (the PS has a fan, why should it need another?), to the front of the case in front of those 2 drives... they stay nice and cool now.
I broke a Molex power connector on a Deathstar once as it was too tight, and it the pins separated from the plastic and broke off the motherboard, from pulling the Molex connector STRAIGHT out as designed.
I would like to provide some constructive criticism on your article. There are some instances where you use "in to" when you should be using "into." For example: "that have shaped the SATA connector in to what we see today."
I am not a grammar expert but this is something that caught my eye a couple of times and I thought you'd like to know.
As for the content of the article, I think it is an excellent subject and something that many PC power users can relate to.
For example, take a look at the Antec P160 design and the hard-disk cage in that design, (including the hard-disk shock mounts). The hard-disks load sideways into that cage. All connectors are fully exposed for cable installation. And with the huge front-slots in the P160 (filtered) and a decent intake fan, the hard-disks are very nicely cooled. That 'up-side-down' P18x design with the power-supply at the bottom also has the doubtful virtue of requiring extra-long power-supply cables. And how many motherboards come with a set of right-angle SATA connectors anyway ?
Pity the P160 seems to be out-of-production. Great that I have a new one stored in my attic for my next PC build. The 2 active thermal probes in the P160 with the associated front-panel display are a huge bonus in these days of hot CPUs and hot graphics cards. No need to run some silly temperature-monitoring program in the background. The P160 loads the motherboard on a tray... a very handy feature indeed when installing or troubleshooting. However, the tray depth is ATX --- a few of the latest 'way-out' enthusiast motherboards (e.g Asus "Striker") have a depth exceeding the ATX spec that would short out on the lip of the tray and collide with the tray fasteners.
Enjoyed the description of your experiences and it serves a useful reminder to take care with internal SATA cables.
I feel it would also be worthwhile to mention ESATA (the official external SATA standard) which has redesigned the connectors in view of external use. In particular external connectors will tend to get more abuse (strain of devices being relocated, re-matings, bending).
Since the internal SATA connector was known to have a potential to damage the device, rather than the cable when it snapped, the ESATA connector was redesigned so that ideally, when something breaks it is the cable connector (part of your relatively cheap cable) rather than the device connector (so you don't write off your expensive drive array).
Although some vendors tried to take SATA externally using the original connectors designed for internal use, the official external SATA specification addresses that problem deliberately (as well as better electrical noise immunity).
I managed to break the plastic bit on a 200GB hard drive by accidentally pressing the cable down while working on the innards.
Luckily I was able to sort out a temp solution and get stuff off the drive, but that involved tape and cardboard, and currently the drive sits unused in a box.
Early SATA connectors were a giant pain. I've also had numerous occasions when the cable has come loose from either the motherboard or hard drive, due to cramped conditions and the relatively inflexible cables and poor retention at both ends.
I have had exactly the same experience as jasonnovak.
I'm sure that I didn't put undue stress on the connector but nevertheless the tongue came away stuck in the cable.
On my drive it loooked to be held in place by a little tab/slot presumably with some adhesive - obviously not enough or it failed.
Anyway, the drive still works but I can only use it with that 1 cable so it's now hotglued together.
When SATA first came out, I bought me a 250GB Seagate. Back when I bought it, 250GB was expensive because perpendicular recording wasn't even dreamed about. Anyway, while shifting it around, I broke the connector on the hard drive. Fortunately for me, I never removed the connector. I jury-rigged something. It ain't pretty, but it still works to this day. I found lying around one of those paint mixing paddles you get for free (and which quite often my dad used on me, balsa wood never hurt so much) and wedged it under the hard drive. It worked. And that hard drive is still a functioning member of society.
How did you get the quote feature to work? I get a pop up window asking me to type in the quoted text, which I do. When I click ok, the text box disappears, and no quote is inserted in my post...
At least that makes me immutable to misquoting people ;P
It would be neat if they used a connector like the breakout box for VGA/DVI on the Macbooks. They have basically a little nub, approx 1/4 inches thick and 1/2 inch wide with about 1/4 inch of depth, with the contacts on either side. The cable is a male connector with the female on the unit. Quite possibly the most robust way of doing things I can think of at this scale.
This first time I couldn't get the drive to be seen again by the OS, so I was out of luck...the second time, I had enough of a connection with my quick patch, to allow me to recover the data. I have to agree that it's all my fault that it happened, but in these modern times, did no one on the SATA committee see that this would be an issue? It's a really flimsy connectory...with no housing...It takes almost no force to break on off and the connectors stick out so darn far that the torque from their own weight plus the cable is a continual strain on the connector. This is something that should have been fixed IMO.
To be fair, they already have done a bunch of work to fix the problem. Talking to Knut, we get the impression that the problem is very uncommon these days.
The funny thing is that it seems to vary a lot depending on the manufacturer. For the photos in this this article I broke an old Maxtor hard drive rather than pull apart the repaired drive for photos. The Maxtor refused to break, in spite of bending it far harder than I ever did with the original broken drive it still took some time to wear it down. I can't imagine why, but it seems like some of this is just a roll of the dice, with the plastics used in the connectors not always holding up to the same conditions.
Then why did you read it, and then take MORE time to post a comment? I come across articles all the time that I don't find interesting. I've found that by ignoring them, I can save a lot of time. You may find it will work for you, too . . .
This is an issue I hadn't really thought about before when building my PCs, and now it's something I'm going to be watching out for more in the future (and I'm going to be checking my SATA connectors when I get home to make sure they're not being strained), so if reading this article prevents me or others from breaking a hard drive at some point, then it was hardly pointless.
There's more to building PCs than looking at benchmarks, so I appreciate articles like this try to make the PC builder's life a little bit easier.
I've done the same thing before while trying to reposition a drive in a case... I didn't think I ever put too much stress on the connector, but it snapped off the same way, with the pins still on the drive and the PCB stuck in the cable end. I was able to carefully slip the cable end/pcb back over the pins, though I should probably glue the cable to the drive so the pins don't snap off at some point.
I'd just like to say thanks for this article. I'm building a new system right now with a 182 case. When I order the drives I now know to order the SATA2 cables with a 90deg bend with them too. You probably saved me a lot of frustration. Keep it up.
I can't believe this, i call it Karma. This issue just happen to me last night, in the Antec P180. The funny part is that it was a locking sata cable, and everything was fine, until i pull the cable off and down came the plastic with it. I will try to Crazy glue the plastic today see if i can get all my data. Since i used it as a back up before installing my second raptor for raid 0. I have about 200GB worth of anime that i dont want to loose =(.
P.S. Ordered a Hitachi 1TB HD today should have it tomorrow for back up and media services =). Lost time reader first time poster.
Well, add another victim to the list. Although I was lucky enough to already use the locking SATA cables, I instead broke off part of the plastic housing on a SATA power connector cable on my PC P&C Quad Silencer unit. I tell the amount of force being put on the cable when routinely inserting the drive cage into the case, somehow put to much force on the power cable and it snapped the protective plastic that covers the end of the power connector.
Now it is just an exposed power connector that I can't use on a drive, and I suspect it won't be the last... trying to contort four pairs of both data and power cables to fit four drives in the lower P180 cage without hitting the fan has been nothing but a pain even with a fangaurd. Lesson learned for my next case purchase...
You could try swapping out the controller card on the hard drive. I've had pretty good luck doing this on a Seagate 80GB drive and a Maxtor 200GB. After an electrical storm I thought the drives were toast but after a controller card swap I was able to recover the data. Make sure to get the exact same controller though, it took me a while to find the proper one on ebay. Sometimes the same model hard drive would have different controllers depending on when it was manufactured. If you end up with the wrong one you might be hearing the click of death!
Also, swapping hard drive platters is highly NOT recommended. :)
I do not think they're worried too much about data recovery, and they probably know about swapping out the drive controller PCB already ; ) Works pretty good does it not : )
Now to the article writer. Maybe it is because I tend to speed read articles as such most of the time(but I did read the article twice) it was not made clear to me, but did the data connector part of the PCB break off while moving the drive in or out, or did this happen while the drive was in already operational ? I just ordered one of these cases for myself(gun metal gray) and it would explain why I got a good deal on it after rebate if this is the case (sorry no pun intended). $45 for this case is not a bad deal, even after buying 4x right angle SATA connectors, but I would really hate to loose 3TB of data because all my HDD data connectors snapped off : /
Another question I had, was do you think this could be brand specific ? I have a pretty good idea I know which drive you guys were using, and I do not use that drive, or even the same brand, but if this IS brand specific, I think your readers should know. At the very least the OEM should know, so they could fix this issue on future models.
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62 Comments
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Patanjali - Friday, April 24, 2009 - link
The SATA connector is underengineered for the stress that can be pent up in the cable.This is very annoying when it happens because to try and get the manufacturer to replace it is more trouble than its worth (supply pictures, etc, because they have neer heard of it). At least I can use the drive but have to be very careful every time I slide out its holder (and now every other to not create more) in the Antec Take 4 Rack case.
Other annoying mechanical engineering designs are:
- DBxx connectors = get snagged on any other cable with which they come in contant, and difficult-to-use finger screws with adjacent DB connectors.
- RJxx connectors = ditto, except that the locking lever will break on one of those occasions. Even the shrouded ones are a nuisance because they can be very difficult to remove because of the amount of finely directed finger pressure required to deform the shroud enough to actually push the lever. The best seem to be those with side walls but not a covering shroud - fingers can get to the lever but other cables cannot snag it.
- wide IDE connectors = where there is no pull tab on the cable as pins at one end will get bent as one of the attempts will pull out one end more than the other. Cables will become flakey if manipulated too many times to get them routed around a case.
- most modern compact connectors = resulting from trying to reduce the connector face area on laptops, etc, but forgetting the transmission requirements that dictate a certain minimum cable size and stiffness. Examples are 4pin 1394 and DisplayPort (mini especially).
- consumer audio cables and connections = resulting from trying to reduce the cable weight (opposite of the previous annoyance) so that use will cause the cheap cable or junction to fail before the expensive equipment does.
Patanjali - Friday, April 24, 2009 - link
Basically, most problems result from the mistaken belief of the designers that the connectors will only one be used once at initial installation, forgetting that one of the reasons to have connectors rather than permanent soldering is to be able to change them around as circumstances change.Ionman - Tuesday, March 10, 2009 - link
I've found the SATA connectors to be the flimsiest of any by far... I live in India where dust is a real issue so that might elevate my problems. I have had problems with my RAID 0 array where my computer would refuse to boot even though the controller was detecting both the drives. A quick chkdsk from the windows cd would solve the problem. In the end i realized that it was the SATA connectors/cables that was the problem. Changed both the cables and voila problem solved. I've encountered the same problem one more time. Space is not really much of an issue on my pc and the cables dont have much stress on them, I guess. But its really frustrating to have a problem like this... takes days to figure out what is really going on.Mr Ravageo - Sunday, March 1, 2009 - link
Good article, it makes you think about what you are doing when you stick your hands in hundreds of dollars of computer investment. As always, planning ahead will always save you time and money on anything, not just a computer build. For those linked here by newegg, I just bought a P182 and I love it; a good solid quiet case. While, I understand the choice of using the bottom HD tray for this demonstration (SATA connector failure/choice); the primary HD bay is in the top compartment. Unless you have super long video cards, this is where the main HD should go. In this compartment a straight cable will work fine. It is always a good to have many different types of connectors on hand (PSU extender cables, 90 deg SATA, etc).Happy Building
anti nowhere - Wednesday, January 30, 2008 - link
This is funny. This same thing happened to me about 2 years ago when I installed my very first and very new SATAII HD. I got out a flashlight and my pliers....lined up the pins and just pushing the cable with broken interface still on it, back into the HD. Then I glued that b*tch right back on there. Has worked ever since and with no problems. Next time I will throw the piece of crap away and buy a new one.Zepper - Tuesday, January 29, 2008 - link
Yes we can find fault with the SATA mechanical design spec - the one for desktop drives is totally inadequate for the environment since it is the same as for notebook drives where the drive is installed once and generally stays there 'til it dies. Using notebook connectors in a desktop environment is absurd!. The power and data connection should be totally surrounded by plastic on the desktop drives like the mobo and drive connectors for PATA cables. That would up the strength by at least an order of magnitude - nothing stopping you from super gluing a slab of plastic along underneath your drive's connectors. The cables will still fit and and you'll have added breakage protection. And for those who haven't broken their connectors yet, here is a cable set that will add a bit of strength for you non-WD drive owners:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... too bad they didn't add the metal "SATA 2" latches - I guess it was just easier to use the notebook female connector (comes in many colors but I've only seen them under this brand name). Use this plus gluing on a bottom rail for double protection. WD offers a similar cable for their SATA drives only.
. Another option is to get a "Kublai Kage" (c) 2007 by me for your case - it comes with four, plastic, slide-in trays for the drives. It comes with the Silverstone Kublai cases (see my review of the KL01 here: http://www.techimo.com/articles/">http://www.techimo.com/articles/ -for pix) and will soon be available separately as the SST-CFP52 and you can get up to four of the SATA hot-swap brackets (SST-CP05) for the cage (the Kublai cases come with only one of them. One place has the CP05s now for $8.00 each, though list is supposed to be $5.00. Since you won't be manually plugging/unplugging and the connections are fairly well concealed, damage should be unlikely. $40.00 total for the Kage and 4 brackets makes this the least expensive SATA hot-swap solution available and will fit most any case with 3 free 5" bays. .bh.
jdizzle1337 - Thursday, January 24, 2008 - link
Ryan i LOLed when i read your article, because the exact same thing has happened to me with that exact same case (well P180B, but w/e ;P). Really ticked me off because it ruined my brand new Seagate 500GB Barracuda, and that was back when they were new and $200, not the $100 that they are now.After looking back at my situation i was dumb and threw the black sliver of plastic that fell off away, after realizing this is integral to securing and completing the SATA connection i attempted to superglue the cable to the SATA pins on the drive.....this causes the board to have a short circuit and thus it will not turn on. I have resigned myself to the fact that the perfectly new unused drive is junk. I have thought about seeing if i can RMA though Seagates cross ship warranty process, but i think they only cover internal failures as opposed to physical damage.
Anyway my methodology for drive installation in the P18x is:
A) Screw the drives into the drive cage
B) Connect the SATA connectors to the drives
C) Hold the cage over the slot that it goes into and let the SATA cables drop down into the drive bay area
D) Slowly lower the drive cage into the drive bay while threading the SATA cables through the cord exit that leads into the main case area that holds the motherboard.
E) Connect the SATA cables to the motherboard.
You have to work gingerly, its all about lowering the drive cage into the bay slowly, and making sure a power connector doesn't get caught on tension and push into one of the data connectors. If you force it down or let it drop in on its own weight the drives farthest to the bottom will likely snap the back of their SATA connectors and the upper ones will have strained plastic around the connector. Just hold the drive cage by the little keyring looking thing and slowly lower it and you will be good ;P
smut - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - link
and I sent into WD and they fixed it! I have since bought the latch on connectors and use the angled ones if need be. I continue to buy WD drives these days because of the customer support given. They RMA'd the drive and sent it back, good as new. If anyone has a WD drive you may be able to get it fixed, its worth a shot. The worst they can say is no.Symmetriad - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Can you do a writeup on the ridiculous disconnect between motherboard and case manufacturers on power switch/front panel connectors next? The hideous lack of standardization has consistently been one of the biggest hassles of building a new PC for years.smut - Wednesday, January 23, 2008 - link
I agree wholeheartedly with your comment! Its very annoying!superkdogg - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
I've broken off a couple SATA tabs on the drive side myself. It's exactly as you described in that they work fine, they just don't suffer a user's abuse like a PATA would.Luckily, it's almost always going to be fixable. You guys 'Macgyvered' it with tape, my solution was to treat the tab as part of the connector cable as well, only I used glue.
I glued the tab first to the cable, then glued the other end back to the drive where it broke off from. It's not elegant, but it's as durable as it was before and there's no chance I'll lose the cable that connects that particular drive!
spellbinder1966 - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Yeah, I had the same concerns when I built two of my P180b rigs.I placed four disks at the bottom (coz I use the upper HD chamber to cool the video cards). I had to carefully bend them (it was so tedious).
I think the 180° TO 90° SATA cables would help a lot (http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=927...">http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=927... but I believe the 180° to 90°-SIDE SATA cables will be much more appropriate. (http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=927...">http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=927...
daddyo323 - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
As a case in point (no pun intended), I see many posts here from people who had the same problem with the Antec 180. IMO, case makers spend too much time focusing on the CPU/graphics cooling in their case, and not enough time on the welfare of the drives... Most drive bays look like an afterthought, with plastic parts and so-so ventilation... When you consider that the data you store can easily be worth many times the entire computer, and is NOT replaceable like a hardware part, the drive bays should be the most engineered part of a case... Yes, backup solutions are necessary, but case makers need to give the drive bays more love...johnsonx - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Reading all the comments of those who have done this same thing, all I can say is:You all suck, I've never broken so much as one SATA connector. Gently little ones, gently!
Ok, so I'm a cocky little s.o.b. this morning, haha!
strikeback03 - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
For the most part I have just used the red SATA cables that come with most motherboards, optical drives, etc; and I assumed the lack of flexibility was a result of the design. Then I picked up a WD drive on Black Friday for a system at work, and the included cable was MUCH more flexible than the average ones I have used. Is there a reason these are not more widespread? Are they more expensive? Is there a reason the cable can't be round like FireWire to allow equal flexibility in all directions?Wolfie - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Now Ryan, you know breaking things should just be left by playing UT but I guess we can forgive you this time. :)This is always good to know since I just obtained a setup that untilizes these types of connectors. And not to mention, UPS is not nice on equipment. Hence the reason why I had so many issues getting this box up and running. I thought these types of connectors where chincy at best. Maybe a different type of connector all together? Hrm, maybe I found my money maker...
lbreevesii - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
I had this happen installing(read: jerry rigging) a 500gb seagate into my GX260 slimline home server. I managed to fix it by super gluing the wafer back into place.MadBoris - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
Funny, I have been cursing SATA connections for the past few days working on a couple systems.I am seriously surprised that the industry somehow thought this was a good connection mechanism. Sometimes due to video cards and other add-in's and the location of the drive cage coupled with the onboard controller, passing a sata cable to the drive becomes very difficult and even an unreliable fit. The cable only wants to bend in one axis. Yesterday looking at my machine one of my drive letters disappeared, after a check in eventvwr the drive apparently disconnected itself while I was sleeping (probably temperature fluctuations), I found it was a flaky SATA connection.
SATA connections seem very flimsy to me in general, having anything but a straight shot, or a bend in only one axis on the cable, to the slot makes them appear very unreliable and unsure at best.
Whoever thought this was a good connecting mechanism was really foolish, if I didn't have several bad experiences w/ sata I couldn't really say that. I'll take IDE over the unsure SATA anyday. I may have bent a pin in the last decade but never a critical issue. Some locking mechanism, and/or more flexible cable, is a no-brainer. The stupidity of some smart people can be surpising at times as with the sata cable and connection mechanism.
MastahYodah - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
The same thing happened to me a couple of days ago. I was able to put the connector back and hoped for the best. Luckily, the pc still recognized the drive; however I'm afraid to move or do anything inside the pc in fear of disconnecting it.hlee - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
i tracked several "unreliable computer" problems to bad sata cables ... the computers would just reboot or crash whithout reason once in a while .. i found a broken plastic part like yours in one case but 4 others were not broken but just bellied out .. i figure that plastic bulge problem reduces contact pressure thus reliability .. my configuration has no undue stress on the cable and no excessive heat .. i saw 5 failures in less than a year (even different cable/drive manufacturers).. some systems would only fail once a week or even a month. just rebooting would fix them for another period .. after changing the cables to the new ones with the metal clips i had no more failures. that cured a lot of frustrating problems .. i reported this to a large local computer store/repair center .. but they didnt believe what i was telling them .. however they did admit that they had seen several early sata drive failures .. they just replaced the drives (and cables) often at customer expense .. i think the plastic lip on the sata cable is just too thin to handle constant contact force. it needs stronger plastic or a reinforcment like the metal clip to maintain contact force over life .. now whenever i see a "bad" or intermittant sata drive i just change the cable and that often fixes the problem. the store still sells the old type cables that dont have the metal tab .. although the improved ones are also in stock .. if you dont know about the problem then you might be buying trouble a few months down the road. i heard that one big computer manufacturer was sending new (but not improved) sata cables to customers that had intermittant conditions. the new cables would work for a year or so and fail again ..iamezza - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
I have broken the SATA power connector on my HDD AND on my power supply connection, when trying to install 4 HDDs in the lower bay of a P180.I think both the Data and Power SATA connections are fundamentally flawed and no matter how much they 'update' them there is no way to make them good.
An example of an extremely reliable and robust serial connector is the ubiquitous USB plug. The USB plug is so simple to plug and unplug, yet is robust and it doesn't become accidentally unplugged! Why bother to re-invent the wheel?
LeeKay - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
I did the same thing with 3 drives no less 2 320GB Segates and 1 500GB Hitachi on my new system build into my new pc using the lower drive bay because the upper was impeding the 8800Ultra.I fried a 12v ground power trace on one of the drives, chipped off part of the sata connector on another and just snapped off the other one like you did. My problem was that the 500gb was to be my main drive so I tried to use a connector like your blue one with the power and the SATA conector on one plug but the problem was the pc is moved around alot and the connector would lose contact with the gold pins so I took an SATA cable and broke the plastic guard arround the pins. I took my dremel and I cut out the area leading to the pins on the board. I unsoldiered it and then I took the cable and soldered it directly to the board all 6 contacts and then I secured the cable with a metal bracket i cut to size from the back plate drilled small holes in the plate and drive and screwed it in place to hold the cable in place and to stop it flexing. Now it works great.
Ichinisan - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
It seems that the major flaw of the proprietary WD "SecureConnect" cable is that it covers the SARA power connector, requiring you to use the 12v connector. Taking away your choice is a problem in some situations. For instance: My legacy-free, super-mini PC chassis expects your SATA drive to use the provided SATA power connector.Snooper - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
I've got four HDs in the lower HD cage on my P180. It definitely took a bit of work to get all the cable to lay in place without rubbing against the fan or bending the cables too tightly.But it can be done. Just don't try to force things...
Voldenuit - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
I've had the same thing happen to me, but with the SATA power cable instead of the data cable. Fortunately, the drive (A WD 250 GB SE16) had a backup molex power adapter. Wish manufacturers included this as a standard (current WD models have dispensed with them).My opinion is that the SATA connector is fundamentally flawed by design. It is too thin and fragile, and the little right angle hanging off the end is just a disaster waiting to happen.
I wouldn't go back to PATA for the world, but I wouldn't mind seeing a more robust design, even if it means having to switch cables.
mongolhorde - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
I had this idea the other day, looking at a CoolerMaster Cosmos 1000 case. It has a section with pull-out drive enclosures for the hard drives, at the bottom, which undoubtedly would require right-angle SATA cables. If people would be willing to pay slightly more, why not make a variant model with an SATA-II compliant backplane? Put both the SATA and SATA power connectors, lined up for the drive cages, behind the drive cage. Then, past the drive, provide the same connector as on the mother board / back of drive for the user to connect up the SATA data cables and power cables.Nothing fancy like in a server, where you maybe have one incoming power lead, just a circuit board with a series of traces to carry the power and data to the drives.
Charge a bit more for that model, or maybe find a way to make it an end user installable accessory...
Help people avoid the situation the article talks about.
Cullinaire - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
Mac Pro anyone??Good idea though, I'd really like to see this happen. Even better if the backplane is sold separately.
RaulF - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
Well crazy glue just worked for me yesterday guys, i also notice i had damage the SATA cable and that's why the drive was not being recognised. Make sure you inspect the cable conector for the little contact wires. I manage to get my stuff out and will use the handicap HD in an enclusure as my external to take info around to a friends house when i need it.Thanks for the article anand, hopefully manufaturers will beef up the plastic on the connectors from now on.
notposting - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
couple issues with this article:First, remove the lower fan from the P180--the PSU will be able to handle exhausting it's own heat and the airflow will be enough to keep the HDs cool enough, that's the point of the separate chambers.
Secondly, the complaint about the HD orientation and the half shroud on the port connector is invalid. Flip the HD. Derr, it's fixed!
pjpizza - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
In the fall of 2004, I bought a 74GB WD Raptor. As I had not had any SATA devices before, I just did what I normally do: shove the thing in! To my horrible discovery, I had broken the SATA connection on the WD... :(Luckily, I too had some McGyver tape handy, and I've used it ever since...
Still, makes you wonder why they can't spec the type of plastic used on the the SATA device to keep the connection from breaking... I thought they would be AT LEAST as durable as PATA, I mean, come on? Newer tech should be better then old tech in all aspects.
jmvillafana - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
It happened to me five years ago with the first motherboard I had with SATA option. Conector broke on the motherboard side. Having two HDD and two connectors I had no options, found the plastic piece and mended as you did. With luck and care, the board worked for four and a half years. A short life for a system, I never found out if the crippled connector shortened the life of the board. I actually unhooked and hooked the connector a few times through this time. My new systems have SATA connectors and I allways use latched ones.bobbozzo - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
Due to the lack of space at the bottom of the p182 case, I put my 2 hard drives in the middle bay, above the floppy bay.I also moved the fan from the bottom (the PS has a fan, why should it need another?), to the front of the case in front of those 2 drives... they stay nice and cool now.
I broke a Molex power connector on a Deathstar once as it was too tight, and it the pins separated from the plastic and broke off the motherboard, from pulling the Molex connector STRAIGHT out as designed.
JonathanYoung - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
Hi Mr. Smith,I would like to provide some constructive criticism on your article. There are some instances where you use "in to" when you should be using "into." For example: "that have shaped the SATA connector in to what we see today."
I am not a grammar expert but this is something that caught my eye a couple of times and I thought you'd like to know.
As for the content of the article, I think it is an excellent subject and something that many PC power users can relate to.
Thank you!
Jonathan Young
kilkennycat - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
For example, take a look at the Antec P160 design and the hard-disk cage in that design, (including the hard-disk shock mounts). The hard-disks load sideways into that cage. All connectors are fully exposed for cable installation. And with the huge front-slots in the P160 (filtered) and a decent intake fan, the hard-disks are very nicely cooled. That 'up-side-down' P18x design with the power-supply at the bottom also has the doubtful virtue of requiring extra-long power-supply cables. And how many motherboards come with a set of right-angle SATA connectors anyway ?Pity the P160 seems to be out-of-production. Great that I have a new one stored in my attic for my next PC build. The 2 active thermal probes in the P160 with the associated front-panel display are a huge bonus in these days of hot CPUs and hot graphics cards. No need to run some silly temperature-monitoring program in the background. The P160 loads the motherboard on a tray... a very handy feature indeed when installing or troubleshooting. However, the tray depth is ATX --- a few of the latest 'way-out' enthusiast motherboards (e.g Asus "Striker") have a depth exceeding the ATX spec that would short out on the lip of the tray and collide with the tray fasteners.
peternelson - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
Enjoyed the description of your experiences and it serves a useful reminder to take care with internal SATA cables.
I feel it would also be worthwhile to mention ESATA (the official external SATA standard) which has redesigned the connectors in view of external use. In particular external connectors will tend to get more abuse (strain of devices being relocated, re-matings, bending).
Since the internal SATA connector was known to have a potential to damage the device, rather than the cable when it snapped, the ESATA connector was redesigned so that ideally, when something breaks it is the cable connector (part of your relatively cheap cable) rather than the device connector (so you don't write off your expensive drive array).
Although some vendors tried to take SATA externally using the original connectors designed for internal use, the official external SATA specification addresses that problem deliberately (as well as better electrical noise immunity).
Thanks for the article.
Lonyo - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
I managed to break the plastic bit on a 200GB hard drive by accidentally pressing the cable down while working on the innards.Luckily I was able to sort out a temp solution and get stuff off the drive, but that involved tape and cardboard, and currently the drive sits unused in a box.
Early SATA connectors were a giant pain. I've also had numerous occasions when the cable has come loose from either the motherboard or hard drive, due to cramped conditions and the relatively inflexible cables and poor retention at both ends.
Heidfirst - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
I have had exactly the same experience as jasonnovak.I'm sure that I didn't put undue stress on the connector but nevertheless the tongue came away stuck in the cable.
On my drive it loooked to be held in place by a little tab/slot presumably with some adhesive - obviously not enough or it failed.
Anyway, the drive still works but I can only use it with that 1 cable so it's now hotglued together.
AlexWade - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
When SATA first came out, I bought me a 250GB Seagate. Back when I bought it, 250GB was expensive because perpendicular recording wasn't even dreamed about. Anyway, while shifting it around, I broke the connector on the hard drive. Fortunately for me, I never removed the connector. I jury-rigged something. It ain't pretty, but it still works to this day. I found lying around one of those paint mixing paddles you get for free (and which quite often my dad used on me, balsa wood never hurt so much) and wedged it under the hard drive. It worked. And that hard drive is still a functioning member of society.jay401 - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
I believe "immutable" means unchanging, and you want "immune" instead.
Starcub - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
How did you get the quote feature to work? I get a pop up window asking me to type in the quoted text, which I do. When I click ok, the text box disappears, and no quote is inserted in my post...At least that makes me immutable to misquoting people ;P
jay401 - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
oh, beaten by about an hour, lol oops.elpresidente2075 - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
It would be neat if they used a connector like the breakout box for VGA/DVI on the Macbooks. They have basically a little nub, approx 1/4 inches thick and 1/2 inch wide with about 1/4 inch of depth, with the contacts on either side. The cable is a male connector with the female on the unit. Quite possibly the most robust way of doing things I can think of at this scale.Cr0nJ0b - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
This first time I couldn't get the drive to be seen again by the OS, so I was out of luck...the second time, I had enough of a connection with my quick patch, to allow me to recover the data. I have to agree that it's all my fault that it happened, but in these modern times, did no one on the SATA committee see that this would be an issue? It's a really flimsy connectory...with no housing...It takes almost no force to break on off and the connectors stick out so darn far that the torque from their own weight plus the cable is a continual strain on the connector. This is something that should have been fixed IMO.Ryan Smith - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
To be fair, they already have done a bunch of work to fix the problem. Talking to Knut, we get the impression that the problem is very uncommon these days.The funny thing is that it seems to vary a lot depending on the manufacturer. For the photos in this this article I broke an old Maxtor hard drive rather than pull apart the repaired drive for photos. The Maxtor refused to break, in spite of bending it far harder than I ever did with the original broken drive it still took some time to wear it down. I can't imagine why, but it seems like some of this is just a roll of the dice, with the plastics used in the connectors not always holding up to the same conditions.
RaulF - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
Same for me, im going to glue them today hopefully i'll get a conection.alfredska - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
I'm sorry that I don't share in everyone else's enthusiasm, but this is probably the most pointless article I've read on AnandTech to date.JohnnyCNote - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
Then why did you read it, and then take MORE time to post a comment? I come across articles all the time that I don't find interesting. I've found that by ignoring them, I can save a lot of time. You may find it will work for you, too . . .KikassAssassin - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
This is an issue I hadn't really thought about before when building my PCs, and now it's something I'm going to be watching out for more in the future (and I'm going to be checking my SATA connectors when I get home to make sure they're not being strained), so if reading this article prevents me or others from breaking a hard drive at some point, then it was hardly pointless.There's more to building PCs than looking at benchmarks, so I appreciate articles like this try to make the PC builder's life a little bit easier.
jasonnovak - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
I've done the same thing before while trying to reposition a drive in a case... I didn't think I ever put too much stress on the connector, but it snapped off the same way, with the pins still on the drive and the PCB stuck in the cable end. I was able to carefully slip the cable end/pcb back over the pins, though I should probably glue the cable to the drive so the pins don't snap off at some point.ModelTech - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
I'd just like to say thanks for this article. I'm building a new system right now with a 182 case. When I order the drives I now know to order the SATA2 cables with a 90deg bend with them too. You probably saved me a lot of frustration. Keep it up.RaulF - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
I can't believe this, i call it Karma. This issue just happen to me last night, in the Antec P180. The funny part is that it was a locking sata cable, and everything was fine, until i pull the cable off and down came the plastic with it. I will try to Crazy glue the plastic today see if i can get all my data. Since i used it as a back up before installing my second raptor for raid 0. I have about 200GB worth of anime that i dont want to loose =(.P.S. Ordered a Hitachi 1TB HD today should have it tomorrow for back up and media services =). Lost time reader first time poster.
Kougar - Tuesday, January 22, 2008 - link
Well, add another victim to the list. Although I was lucky enough to already use the locking SATA cables, I instead broke off part of the plastic housing on a SATA power connector cable on my PC P&C Quad Silencer unit. I tell the amount of force being put on the cable when routinely inserting the drive cage into the case, somehow put to much force on the power cable and it snapped the protective plastic that covers the end of the power connector.Now it is just an exposed power connector that I can't use on a drive, and I suspect it won't be the last... trying to contort four pairs of both data and power cables to fit four drives in the lower P180 cage without hitting the fan has been nothing but a pain even with a fangaurd. Lesson learned for my next case purchase...
MastahYodah - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
Talk about karma; the same thing happened to me using the same antec p180 case. LOL!NiklasB - Monday, January 21, 2008 - link
Wellwell.. I did exactly this with a P182 and my brand new WDC Raptor driveRaulF - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
Long...erikpurne - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
"You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
kmmatney - Saturday, January 19, 2008 - link
Inconceivable!CorbaTheGeek - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
"impervious," not "immutable."Guuts - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
"immune" will work there, too.Ryan Smith - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
Thanks.FUXX - Friday, January 18, 2008 - link
You could try swapping out the controller card on the hard drive. I've had pretty good luck doing this on a Seagate 80GB drive and a Maxtor 200GB. After an electrical storm I thought the drives were toast but after a controller card swap I was able to recover the data. Make sure to get the exact same controller though, it took me a while to find the proper one on ebay. Sometimes the same model hard drive would have different controllers depending on when it was manufactured. If you end up with the wrong one you might be hearing the click of death!Also, swapping hard drive platters is highly NOT recommended. :)
yyrkoon - Sunday, January 20, 2008 - link
I do not think they're worried too much about data recovery, and they probably know about swapping out the drive controller PCB already ; ) Works pretty good does it not : )Now to the article writer. Maybe it is because I tend to speed read articles as such most of the time(but I did read the article twice) it was not made clear to me, but did the data connector part of the PCB break off while moving the drive in or out, or did this happen while the drive was in already operational ? I just ordered one of these cases for myself(gun metal gray) and it would explain why I got a good deal on it after rebate if this is the case (sorry no pun intended). $45 for this case is not a bad deal, even after buying 4x right angle SATA connectors, but I would really hate to loose 3TB of data because all my HDD data connectors snapped off : /
Another question I had, was do you think this could be brand specific ? I have a pretty good idea I know which drive you guys were using, and I do not use that drive, or even the same brand, but if this IS brand specific, I think your readers should know. At the very least the OEM should know, so they could fix this issue on future models.