SATA Hard Drives

Serial ATA Hard Drive Characteristics

Number of pins/conductors in data cable

7/7

 

 

 

 

Number of pins in power cable

15

 

 

 

Maximum data cable length

39.37 in (100 cm)

 

 

Data interface voltage differential

400-700 mV

 

 

 

Drive voltages

3.3

V, 5 V, 12 V

 

 

 

Jumpers for configuring drive

N/A

 

 

 

 

Data transfer rate

3.0

Gb/s

 

 

 

SATA Hard Drive Cables

SATA Data Cable

Always use an HP approved SATA 3.0 Gb/s cable as it is fully backwards compatible with the SATA 1.5 Gb/s drives.

Current HP desktop products ship with SATA 3.0 Gb/s hard drives.

SATA data cables are susceptible to damage if overflexed. Never crease a SATA data cable and never bend it tighter than a 30 mm (1.18 in) radius.

The SATA data cable is a thin, 7-pin cable designed to transmit data for only a single drive.

SMART ATA Drives

The Self Monitoring Analysis and Recording Technology (SMART) ATA drives for the HP Personal Computers have built-in drive failure prediction that warns the user or network administrator of an impending failure or crash of the hard drive. The SMART drive tracks fault prediction and failure indication parameters such as reallocated sector count, spin retry count, and calibration retry count. If the drive determines that a failure is imminent, it generates a fault alert.

Cable Management

Always follow good cable management practices when working inside the computer.

Keep cables away from major heat sources like the heat sink.

Do not jam cables on top of expansion cards or memory modules. Printed circuit cards like these are not designed to take excessive pressure on them.

Keep cables clear of sliding or moveable parts to prevent them from being cut or crimped when the parts are moved.

When folding a flat ribbon cable, never fold to a sharp crease. Sharp creases may damage the wires.

SATA Hard Drives 73