Hard drive connector description. What are the types of hard drive connectors?

Overview of hard drive interfaces

ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment)

ATA/PATA is a parallel interface for connecting hard drives and optical drives, created in the second half of the 80s of the last century. After the appearance of the serial interface, SATA received the name PATA (parallel ATA). The standard has continuously evolved, and its latest version, Ultra ATA/133, has a theoretical data transfer speed of about 133 Mb/s. However, PATA hard drives aimed at the mass market only reached speeds of 66 MB/s. This method of data transfer is already outdated, but modern motherboards still have one PATA connector installed.

One PATA connector can connect two devices (hard drives and/or optical drives). This may cause a device conflict. ATA devices have to be “wired” manually by installing switches (jumpers) on them. If the jumpers are installed correctly, the computer will be able to understand which device is the master and which the slave.

PATA uses 40-wire or 80-wire interface cables, the length of which, according to standards, should not exceed 46 cm. The more ATA devices in the system unit, the more difficult it is to ensure their optimal interaction. In addition, wide cables prevent normal air circulation in the case. In addition, they are quite easy to damage when connecting or disconnecting the cable.

SATA (Serial ATA)

SATA - serial interface for connecting data storage devices. Replaced PATA in the early 2000s. Currently reigns supreme on most personal computers. The first version of SATA revision 1.x (SATA/150) had a theoretical data transfer speed of up to 150 Mb/s, the latest - SATA rev. 3.0 (SATA/600) - provides throughput up to 600 Mb/s. However, this speed is not yet in demand, since the average speed of the fastest models for the mass market fluctuates around 150 Mb/s. However, on average, SATA drives are twice as fast as their predecessors.

The three versions of the serial interface are often referred to as SATA I/SATA II/SATA III, which, according to the developers, is incorrect. In theory, different versions of the interface are backward compatible. That is, SATA rev. 2.x can be connected to a motherboard with a SATA rev. connector. 1.x. Although the connectors are interchangeable, in reality different motherboard models with different hard drive models may interact differently.

SATA, unlike PATA, uses a 7-pin interface cable with a maximum length of 1 meter and a small cross-sectional area (that is, it is much narrower than the PATA cable). It is also much harder to damage and easier to connect or disconnect. For owners of old computers and hard drives, there are adapters from SATA to PATA and vice versa. “Hot swapping” of disks is not supported - when the system unit is turned on, you cannot disconnect and attach SATA disks (PATA, however, too).

Connecting cables to hard drives:
PATA (top; wide gray) and SATA (bottom; narrow red)

eSATA (External SATA)

Interface for connecting external drives. Created in 2004. Supports hot-swap mode, which requires activation of the AHCI mode in the BIOS. SATA and eSATA connectors are not compatible. The cable length has been increased to 2 meters. A Power eSATA connector has also been developed, which allows you to combine an interface cable and a power cable.

FireWire (IEEE 1394)

Serial high-speed interface for connecting various devices to a PC and creating a computer network. The IEEE 1394 standard was adopted in 1995. Since then, several interface options have been developed with different bandwidths (FireWire 800 up to 80 Mb/s and FireWire 1600 up to 160 Mb/s) and different connector configurations. FireWire is hot pluggable and does not require a separate power cable.

It was first used to capture movies from MiniDV video cameras. More often used to connect various multimedia devices, less often - to connect hard drives and RAID arrays. At one time, FireWire was planned to be a replacement for ATA.

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)

Parallel interface for connecting various devices (from hard drives and optical drives to scanners and printers). Standardized in 1986 and has been continuously developed since then. The Ultra-320 SCSI interface version has a throughput of up to 320 Mb/s. A 50- and 68-pin cable is used to connect devices. Recent versions of SCSI use an 80-pin connector and are hot-swappable.

This interface is almost unfamiliar to the mass user due to the high cost of SCSI drives. As a result, most motherboards are produced without a built-in controller. Typical applications for SCSI drives are servers, high-performance workstations, and RAID arrays. It is gradually becoming a thing of the past, as it is being replaced by the SAS interface.

SAS (Serial Attached SCSI)

A serial interface that replaced SCSI. Technically more advanced and faster (up to 600 Mb/s). There are several different options for SAS connectors. The SCSI interface uses a common bus, so only one device can work with the controller at a time. SAS, due to the implementation of dedicated channels, is free of this drawback. Backward compatible with the SATA interface (you can connect SATA rev. 2.x and SATA rev. 3.x to it, but not vice versa). Unlike SATA, it is more reliable, but costs significantly more and consumes more energy. Unlike SCSI, it has smaller connectors, which allows the use of 2.5-inch drives.

USB (Universal Serial Bus)

Serial interface for transferring data from various devices. One bus carries data and power. Hot swap supported. USB devices may not have their own power supply: maximum current is 500 mA for USB 2.0 and 900 mA for USB 3.0. In practice, this means that 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch external hard drives are powered via a USB cable. 3.5-inch external drives already require a separate power supply. Despite the fact that the external drive is connected via a USB connector and is positioned as a “USB HDD”, inside the device there is a regular SATA hard drive and a special SATA-USB controller.

USB is extremely common. The most common version is USB 2.0. USB 3.0 will become the standard in the coming years, but there aren't many USB 3.0 devices or motherboards on the market that support it. Data exchange speed compared to USB 2.0 has increased 10 times to 4.8 Gbit/s. The actual speed of USB 3.0, as tests show, is up to 380 Mb/s.

The new interface uses new cables: USB Type A and USB Type B. The former is compatible with USB 2.0 Type A.

Thunderbolt (formerly known as Light Peak)

A promising interface for connecting peripheral devices to a PC. Developed by Intel to replace interfaces such as USB, SCSI, SATA and FireWire. In May 2010, the first computer with Light Peak was demonstrated, and in February of this year, Apple joined in supporting the interface.

Data transfer speed up to 10 Gbps (20 times faster than USB 2.0), maximum cable length 3 meters. Simultaneous connection with multiple devices, support for different protocols, and “hot” connection of devices are possible.

Despite the excellent data transfer speeds, it is not yet known whether the Thunderbolt interface will become a standard on mainstream PCs.

From left to right: USB 2.0, USB 3.0, Thunderbolt cables

Network interfaces

In recent years, network-attached storage systems have become increasingly popular. Essentially, this is a separate mini-computer that acts as a data storage. It's called NAS (Network Attached Storage). Connects via a network cable, configured and controlled from another PC via a browser. Some NAS are equipped with additional services (photo gallery, media center, BitTorrent and eMule clients, mail server, etc.). It is purchased for the home in cases where large disk space is needed, which is used by many family members (photos, videos, audio). Data transfer from network storage to other computers on the network occurs via cable (usually a standard gigabit Ethernet network) or using Wi-Fi.

Summary

So, if you are an average computer user, then your choice is an internal SATA rev 2.x or SATA rev 3.x drive. There is practically no difference in speed between them. PATA is no longer sold and is outdated, SCSI and SAS are too expensive. If you have several computers in your home and share resources, then it's time to think about purchasing network file storage.

The range of hard drives is so huge that figuring out which hard drive to choose for a particular task can be very difficult. Therefore, I tried to write a kind of short guide to the world of hard drives, in which I will talk about the directions of development of the “screw” industry and give examples of the use of certain models.

I will not go particularly deeply into history and talk about everything that was invented and implemented over more than half a century of history, but I will talk mainly about what a modern user may encounter when coming to a store or looking into a system unit.

A lot has changed since the creation of the first HDD (Hard Disk Drive). Let me remind you that over such a long period of time, only the principle of operation has remained unchanged - rotating magnetized plates and heads that read information from them - this is what unites all models.

The number of hard drive manufacturers is constantly decreasing - constant acquisitions and mergers have led to the fact that there are only three manufacturers left - Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba, with the first two accounting for more than 90% of the market share. On the other hand, the number of models differing in size and technical characteristics is constantly growing.

Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba - everyone who managed to survive in difficult competition

And all because the scope of application is becoming wider and the requirements are becoming more stringent. Modifications for special purposes appear for use in various devices besides a computer.

Form factor 3.5 and 2.5 inches.

The entire variety of hard drives can be divided into two large categories, determined by the size (width) of the device in inches. In other words, there are so-called “large” hard drives - 3.5 inches, and small ones - 2.5 inches. The larger the drive, the larger the size of each platter in it, and the more information can fit on the device.

The maximum volume of “large” hard drives reached 10 TB, while most “small” ones had a capacity limited to one terabyte (you can also find 2 TB models on sale - they are too expensive).

Comparison of two- and three-inch HDDs.
The difference in size and weight is visible to the naked eye.
Heat dissipation, noise level and power consumption also differ

The first group (3.5 inches) is used in conventional desktop computers. Any desktop contains just such a device, on which both the operating system and the user’s files are stored - images, videos, music and documents.

“Babies” are installed mainly in laptops. Due to their size, they do not take up much space, do not weigh down the laptop too much, and, in addition, consume little energy, extending battery life.

However, “small hard drives” also have additional uses - they are often used in home media players, allowing you to record a huge amount of video and audio materials, in external hard drives connected directly to a computer (DAS), as well as in network file storages (NAS).

NAS is a typical example of using a hard drive.
This file storage is connected via a network and contains 4 hard drives

Here we come to the second important difference between these groups – energy efficiency. If tiny two-inch devices under load consume within 2-2.5 Watts (and at idle generally less than a Watt), then older ones are more voracious and can eat about 7-10 Watts.

This quality allows small brothers to do without an external power source; they are powered directly from the USB port of a computer or even a smartphone (as well as a tablet). Let me remind you that a USB 2.0 port at a voltage of 5 Volts produces a current of 0.5 Amperes, that is, the power output by the port is 2.5 Watts (or 4.5 Watts for USB 3.0).

Example of an external hard drive.
The USB port is used for connection.
Inside there is a 2.5-inch hard drive

It is for this reason that “babies” are very often used in external hard drives - the power of the USB port is enough to feed the device. That is, such a drive is a self-sufficient device - it only requires a short cord to connect to a computer.

But when using three-inch drives, external power is required. Therefore, they are not suitable for convenient transportation - not only can you not put them in your pocket, but you will also need to carry an external power supply with you, and sometimes it takes up more space than the device itself. This explains the popularity of using laptop hard drives as portable storage devices.

External HDD 3.5 inches.
The power supply is comparable in size to the device itself.
There can be no talk of any compactness

Multimedia players use both classes. But at the same time, compact models contain 2.5-inch hard drives - this not only significantly reduces the size, but also reduces power consumption, noise and vibration, which is important when watching movies or listening to music. If you need a silent media player or storage, then these hard drives are the most suitable choice.

Media player - allows you to watch videos and listen to music.
Connects to the TV and has a remote control.
But inside is the same 3.5-inch hard drive

The third important quality is weight. “Adult” models weigh quite a lot, so their use is excluded in portable devices, hard drives, cameras, laptops, etc., while “kids” do not weigh down the pocket and do not weigh down equipment too much.

Lilliputians 1.8 inches.

There are also tiny models with a 1.8-inch form factor. Their capacity is even smaller, but the price is quite high. Therefore, they were used only where exceptional compactness was required. For example, in portable mp4 players. True, due to the rapid development of flash memory, they are less and less in demand. And at the moment they are almost replaced by flash.

Tiny 1.8-inch hard drive (second from top).
Couldn't stand the competition and was forced out by a flush.
Bottom HDD 3.5 inches, on it - HDD 2.5 inches

SATA and IDE interfaces

In simple terms, an interface is the connectors used to connect to the computer’s motherboard or other device.

IDE interface

Quite an ancient means of connecting hard drives. You can no longer find such HDDs on sale - they have been discontinued for a long time, but on some not the newest computer models you can still find such hard drives.

They differ in that two devices are connected through one cable (loop). Moreover, on the HDDs themselves, using jumpers (jumpers), it was necessary to set which device would be the primary one and which one would be the auxiliary one. Old-timers remember very well how much nerves are spent on the correct installation of jumpers.

Cable for connecting two IDE hard drives to the motherboard

Maximum throughput is 133 MB/s - modern models have long exceeded this mark. How to connect such a device to modern boards that do not have the appropriate connector can be read in the article How to connect an old IDE hard drive to a new computer

SATA interface

Modern connection interface. Each hard drive is connected with a separate cable, which eliminates the fuss with configuration (as in the IDE). In addition, the interface throughput is significantly higher. There are several versions of SATA, differing only in speed.

Detailed information on what the connectors look like is in the article “How to connect a hard drive to a computer.”

Moreover, if 2- and 3-inch IDE hard drives had different connectors that were not compatible with each other, then for SATA both classes of devices use identical plugs.

Hard drive thickness

While the thickness does not play an important role in 3.5-inch hard drives, it is important in its younger counterparts. Its nominal value for laptop hard drives is 9.5 mm.

The thickness of the HDD is determined by the number of magnetic plates. The more plates, the greater the capacity of the hard drive, but the thicker the final device will be.

Portable drives typically carry one to three platters (“Large drives” carry three to five platters). Therefore, their thickness can vary from 7 mm (with one plate) to 12.5 mm (with three plates).

The standard and most common option is 9.5 mm with two plates. These are the ones used in most laptops. When purchasing a thicker (and more capacious) model, you may be faced with the impossibility of installing it in a laptop - the hard drive simply will not fit in the corresponding compartment.

Comparison of models with a thickness of 12.5 and 9.5 mm.
The first one has one more plate.
Otherwise the models are the same

Therefore, when purchasing a replacement device for a laptop, you should definitely look at the thickness. Moreover, ultrabooks, which are compact, have disks that are only 7 mm thick.

But the industry does not stand still, and manufacturers have already presented hard drives with a thickness of only 5 mm (with one plate). But they are just appearing on the market and are quite expensive.

On the other hand, in portable external hard drives there is no point in chasing thickness, so they sometimes install 12.5 mm hard drives. In this case, the capacity can reach up to one and a half or even two terabytes.

Hard drive rotation speed.

Another important point that you need to pay attention to when buying a hard drive is the rotation speed of the spindle (and plates). For “slow” models it is in the range of 5200-5900 rpm (standard – 5400 rpm).

Such models do not get very hot, do not make noise, and have almost no vibration, but their performance is relatively low. The main purpose is computers and devices with weak or no cooling, as well as systems for which silence is the main requirement - for example, media centers and players.

The higher-speed group with a frequency of 7200 rpm has higher performance, but heats up and is much louder. But the main problem when using such models at home is vibration, which is discussed below. Previously, an operating system was installed on such hard drives - a high rotation speed ensured low access time to information, which had a positive effect on the responsiveness of the system.

The next group of hard drives - 10,000 rpm and more - is an extreme line of hard drives with extremely high performance. The heat dissipation is so high that such drives require a separate heatsink.

But with the advent of SSDs, the need for high-speed hard drives in the home sector has practically disappeared. The system is installed on a solid state drive, and the data is stored on a traditional disk. The use of fast drives is justified only in the corporate segment, where the requirements for noise and vibration are low; there they are still in great demand.

It should be noted that models of the latter group are especially quickly being replaced by SSDs. The speed of hard drives is disproportionately higher, even compared to the fastest hard drives - you can read about this in the article Comparison of SSD and HDD speeds. At the same time, they are completely silent, consume less electricity and hardly heat up, and their price is often even lower than “fast HDDs”.

Test results for Vertex 3 SSD and Seagate 3 TB HDD.
SSD performance is significantly higher

Thanks to the development of technology and the increase in recording density on platters, the reading speed of “low-speed models” has exceeded 150-160 MB/s, which is higher than that of the fastest copies of 1 or 2 years ago. So they can only be called slow conditionally.

HDD capacity

The peculiarity of the current situation in the market is that, due to technological difficulties, the growth rate of storage capacity is constantly slowing down, so you should not expect a huge increase in the near future, as was the case before.

At the moment, the maximum for 3.5-inch hard drives is 10 TB, but the most optimal price per gigabyte are five-terabyte models.

With laptop hard drives everything is much simpler. If we discard exotic models, then the optimal volume is 1 TB, and it is also the maximum in a standard 9.5 mm case. For most purposes, such a disk will be more than enough.

Noise and vibration levels

Often one of the main requirements for operating a home is comfort. No matter how strange it may sound, the first place in importance is the low noise level emitted by the drives.

Models with low spindle speeds tend to be much quieter than their fast counterparts, which emit a constant low-frequency whistle. In addition, vibration is transmitted to the case of a computer (or other device), so when two or more high-frequency devices operate in one case, the vibration increases many times over.

You've probably heard an annoying low-frequency hum emitted by the case. The culprit is precisely fast HDDs working in pairs (and more). The best solution is to use economical low-speed models.

Temperature and stable power supply

Modern drives are very complex electronic devices; their durability is highly dependent on operating conditions. Firstly, drives (primarily 3.5-inch) must be properly cooled. A radiator clogged with dust in a laptop or improper organization of air flow in a desktop can lead to operation at elevated temperatures, which significantly reduces the life of the HDD.

Additional cooling from Zalman.
Allows you to reduce the temperature by 5-7 degrees.
Very effective product in housings with poor ventilation

Comfortable temperature for the drive is below 40 degrees. The range of 40-45 is still tolerable, although undesirable. It is highly recommended not to use the disc at higher temperatures.

You can view the temperature using standard utilities or third-party programs, for example, HD Tune or CrystalDiskInfo (both free).

The second important point - stable power supply - is more relevant for desktop computers. An old power supply with dried out elements that does not smooth out power surges can cause hard drive failure.

Many times I have heard from customers a lot of unflattering reviews about HDD manufacturers, for example, when two disks purchased in a row “die”, but the reason ultimately turned out to be a low-quality or old power supply, after replacing which everything returned to normal.

Hybrids

The story would be incomplete without mentioning hybrids. This is a type of HDD in which a traditional disk is supplemented with a flash memory drive of small capacity (due to which the price, although higher, is not much). The flash drive contains the most frequently used files (or blocks) of the hard drive, improving performance. The capacity of the hybrid is the same as that of conventional HDDs, and much larger than the capacity of SSDs.

But, in my opinion, hybrids have not taken root very well. If you need to save money, it’s better to do without an SSD altogether, and if you need performance, it’s better to buy a full-fledged solid state drive.

The only place where the use of hybrids is justified is in laptops, they have only one drive bay and it is not possible to install two devices at once.

When using 3.5-inch hard drives, I recommend using Green series drives from Western Digital, which operate almost silently, and for NAS (and media players), as well as when using two or more drives together, I recommend using the Red series from the same manufacturer.

Western Digital Red Series.
A wonderful representative of silent hard drives.

Vibration in the Red line is kept to a minimum, so even with four units running at the same time, vibration and annoying low-frequency hum will be unnoticeable.

Among laptop hard drives, the Hitachi Travelstar series and the WD Scorpio Blue series are quite good. It is only important not to forget about the thickness of the devices in case of replacing the HDD with a similar one with a larger capacity.

Seagate devices are also good, but they are usually a little more expensive (for 3.5-inch models) and their noise level is a little higher.

And do not forget about the correct operation of any HDD, do not let the hard drive overheat, otherwise its life will be too short.

A hard disk is a solid-state drive, which is so called in contrast to a floppy disk, which has not been used by users for a long time. The operation of connecting a hard drive is not so complicated and in many cases the user can do everything independently, without contacting computer specialists.

In what cases do you have to connect hard drives?

When upgrading, you replace the old drive with a more powerful and larger one.
To expand disk memory. For example, to place computer games and some applications on a separate hard drive.
During repair - replacing a failed drive with a functional one.
To read large amounts of previously recorded information.

Basic provisions

If a system unit with an IDE interface has more than one hard drive, then one of them on the bus is designated as the main one, and the second as the auxiliary one. The first one is called Master, and the other one is called Slave. Such a division is required so that when loading the operating system after turning on, the computer knows exactly which disk is the boot one.

In all cases, you can set the boot sequence from drives using the BIOS settings. And in IDE this is done by installing jumpers on the disk enclosures according to the diagram shown on the enclosure.

By type of interface, hard drives differ between IDE – the old model and SATA – in all new computers. If you have an older model of system unit and you are going to connect a new hard drive with a SATA interface, you will need to purchase a special adapter.

Junk

It happens that you pick up this old thing and can’t figure out what to connect and where. The old IDE interface (1986) is attached to a parallel cable. Usually there are either 2 or 4 connectors on the motherboard. Always an even number, because the Master/Slave rule works. Settings can be specified using jumpers (example):

Master – the presence of a jumper between the leftmost contacts (7 and 8) of the control connector.
Slave – absence of any jumpers.

The specified configuration may vary depending on the manufacturer, as well as the set of permissible functions specified by the connector. The IDE interface made it possible to conveniently connect a hard drive and a CD drive to the computer at the same time. This was enough for most users. The disadvantage of the parallel interface was the low transfer speed. IDE is otherwise referred to among professionals as parallel ATA or ATA-1. The transfer speed of such devices does not exceed 133 Mbit/s (for ATA-7). With the introduction of the serial SATA interface in 2003, the aging information transfer protocol began to be called parallel PATA.

The name ATA-1 was assigned to the IDE interface in 1994 when it was recognized by the ANSI organization. Formally, it was an extension of the 16-bit ISA bus (predecessor of PCI). It is curious that in the modern world there is a tendency to use video card interfaces to create ports for connecting hard drives. This was followed by accelerated ATA-2 and packet ATAPI. The IDE interface has not been officially supported since December 2013. Connecting such a hard drive to a new motherboard is only possible with an expansion card.

Using such devices, you can perform the exact opposite function: install previous generation hard drives on new motherboards. So, for example, on the old A7N8X-X there are only two IDE ports, but there are 5 PCI 2.2 slots for expansion cards. The universal adapter is just right for this case. And you can install a modern hard drive up to SATA3, but its operating speed will, of course, be several times lower than the maximum.

Hard drives for standard IDE interfaces are probably already mostly out of order. And there are not so many of them left in the world. It remains to add to this that the configuration of ATA devices can be changed using jumpers, and the explanatory drawing is located directly on the device body. Unscrupulous suppliers sometimes keep jumpers for themselves, and not every configuration in this case can be carried out by the user. There are usually not enough jumpers.

Today there is a new trend: traditional PCI cards, which were supplanted for some time by PCI Express cards, are reappearing on motherboards. This means that “old stuff” can now be connected to a modern system unit using an adapter.

SATA drives

Experts generally distinguish three generations of SATA. The gradation is based on the speed of information transmission:

SATA – 1.5 Gbit/s.
SATA2 – 3 Gbit/s.
SATA3 – 6 Gbit/s.

A standard SATA drive has two connectors, one of which is used for power supply, and the second serves as a data transfer cable. It is not recommended to swap hard drives by connecting them to different SATA ports. The plugs have keys that prevent the connector from being connected incorrectly.

Sometimes the hard drive can contain useful information that any advanced user can understand. But sometimes the designation tends to be so ornate that only a true professional can comprehend it. As, for example, in this case.

There is information about the brand, serial number, technical data and even measures of disk capacity. But its interface remains unknown. This is important when choosing hardware for a computer with limited capabilities. If the disk had a SATA3 interface, then it is useless to install one in an old system unit. There are many other similar examples. Let's say in advance that this drive has a SATA 2.6 interface. Consequently, its information exchange rate limit is 3 Mbit/s.

If information about the HDD interface type is available

How to tell the difference? First, you can look at the body. Here is an image of an old disk that supports two speeds, therefore, it is a SATA2 device.

When removed from the system unit, it was equipped with a jumper that reduced the speed.

The jumper was immediately removed, therefore, the device will now function twice as fast. On the SATA 2.0 bus of the GA-H61M-D2-B3 motherboard.

This once again suggests that it is not enough to buy a system unit; you also need to study its entire device in general and hard drives in particular. The drives inside were paired using a special hanging frame.

This achieves better maintainability of the structure. Both hard drives were quickly removed from the case. As an alternative, a bay installation option is used, where the housing is secured with screws on both sides, and two side covers must be removed for dismantling. Which is not very convenient, considering that each of them usually jams. It is rare to find system unit cases where the sidewalls are removed using simple methods.

If HDD interface data is missing

Sometimes the hard drive may not have data transfer speed information. In this case, you can, of course, stock up on AIDA, but it’s even easier to look up the information on the Internet. The brand of the drive is determined by the price list or the appearance of the case.

Let's say we have WD5000AAJS in our hands. Only one thing is known - at lunchtime he will be a hundred years old. Therefore, you need to familiarize yourself with historical information on the Internet. Since models are constantly updated, you need to enter the code followed by a dash - 00YFA0. The search engine quickly provided an answer, and now there is every reason to claim that the channel bandwidth is 3 Gbit/s (SATA 2.5 generation).

We have already discussed above how to connect such equipment to an outdated motherboard that does not have a SATA interface. So let's move on to new products.

Connecting SATA to exSATA bus

When engineers approached the problem of increasing SATA speeds to 12 Gbit/s and higher, it turned out that this was not economically viable. Energy efficiency drops sharply while prices rise. Someone noticed that the PCI Express graphics card bus works at high speeds without problems, and then it was decided to make some kind of hybrid between it and the now obsolete SATA. To do this, the connector was divided into two parts:

Specific. Small port on the side.
Standard. Two ports for SATA0 connection.

The figure shows a dual exSATA port. This can include 4 hard drives with a SATA interface, or 2 exSATA, or 1 exSATA and 2 SATA. Below is an example of connecting two SATA drives to one exSATA port.

Due to its large size, covering three exSATA slots at once, the plug is called a hub among professionals. You need to start by checking the BIOS. It turned out that some motherboards can turn off SATA support, completely switching to Express, which supports speeds of up to 16 Gbps.

At the same time, you can look at the BIOS capabilities regarding RAID arrays. Let us remember that in the latter case, several hard drives can duplicate their information for reliability, or turn on alternately, which significantly increases the speed of operation. The size of the article does not allow us to speak in more detail on this topic.

The selected AHCI mode is the default mode for most systems. It provides maximum compatibility with older equipment in a completely transparent manner for the user. To safely hot-plug drives, it is recommended to set the appropriate option in the BIOS settings.

When installing a new operating system, the sequence for connecting bootable media is specified. The hard drive is not put in first place. Instead, leadership is given to a flash drive or DVD drive.

Before connecting

How to connect an IDE hard drive

On the motherboard, the IDE connector is visible from afar. You can recognize it by its characteristic slot with many contacts and a key located approximately in the center of the block.

A splitter cable is usually hung on each port, so that a master and a servant are on the channel at the same time.

Before connecting a drive, you need to correctly configure the jumpers on its case - Slave or Master. There will definitely be a diagram on the case on how to do this.

For drives from different manufacturers, the order in which jumpers are inserted will be unique (they seem to be competing in this). The disk must be a bus master, otherwise the operating system cannot be started from it (No IDE Master detected). Therefore, it is necessary to set the slave jumper on the CD drive.

After setting the jumpers, insert the hard drive into a suitable cage and secure it with four screws on both sides. Connect the single data cable connector to the corresponding header on the motherboard. Connect the power cables. The order doesn't matter here.

Now you can close the system unit covers and connect the computer. The system itself should detect new connections and configure everything. The user will only have to confirm operations in the Add New Equipment Wizard.

If the system is confused about where the Master is and where the Slave is, then it is necessary to make assignments in the BIOS. Immediately after turning on the power, press the F2 or Del key repeatedly (in different ways) to open the BIOS settings. Find the interface for describing the order of boot devices, set the parameters. The first is the CD drive from which the system is installed. Save the settings using the F10 key. After this, the operating system will begin loading.

How to connect a SATA hard drive to an old motherboard

To connect a SATA hard drive, use a PCI bus adapter. It may have one or another number of ports; accordingly, several hard drives are installed.

Insert the card into the slot, connect the hard drive, place it in the bay and secure it with screws on both sides - two or four screws in total. It is advisable to choose the location of the modules inside the system unit in such a way that, if possible, there is enough free space between them to ensure ventilation. Otherwise, if the computer overheats, it will automatically turn off.

Now connect the power cable to the hard drive. If the power supply is an old model for IDE, you will need an adapter to connect SATA. Now you can connect the data cable to the hard drive. After the system boots, you should install the driver from the included DVD, and the new drive will become visible through Explorer.

Sometimes there is no other drive other than SATA. And then you need to install Windows again via a PCI adapter. The bootloader will not see the drive, but will give you the opportunity to find it manually. This is where you will need to find the required driver for the current operating system on the DVD. The installer will then notice the disk and you can create partitions for the new operating system. This is absolutely accurate, because the authors installed the “seven” in this way on an old system unit.

Hello! I received a very interesting question by email.
My reader encountered an installation problem old hard drive with IDE connector to a new motherboard, where only SATA controllers. And the problem is not so much the need to use the old hard drive, but to gain access to the information that was stored on the old hard drive.

Many users have a need to connect an old hard drive to a computer, so I offer my solution.

This is what SATA/IDE hard drive connectors look like.

Of course, these connectors are not compatible with each other. The IDE connector is connected to the motherboard with a wide flat cable, and the SATA connector is connected to a thin SATA cable.

The fact is that motherboard manufacturers try to save on every little thing. Why install outdated connectors on the board if almost no one uses them anymore? Connectors will only take up extra space and increase the cost of the motherboard.

In addition, I suggest you take a look at this article - the cheapest way to connect an IDE device, which will also help you solve the issue.

We are looking for a solution!

So we can do like this NOT professionals. We install the old IDE hard drive into another computer with IDE connectors, copy all the necessary information from it to a flash drive or external hard drive, then copy all the information to the new computer. Great, the information is saved, but what should we do with the old disk? Just put it on the shelf and forget about it - this is not our method.

We will go the other way, so to connect the IDE hard drive we will need a PCI - SATA/IDE controller.
Controllers may differ from each other by manufacturer, number of connectors, and may be implemented on different chips, but these differences do not affect the principle of working with them.
This is what this miracle of technology looks like. And here is a link to a similar option for ordering from China - http://aliexpress.com/pci-ide-sata (note that the controller in the link has a pci express-x1 connector)

The cost of such a controller is about 400-500 rubles. And it works out its cost 100%, since in return we get the opportunity to install both old HDDs on new motherboards and new hard drives on old motherboards.
This controller has several SATA connectors and one IDE controller on board. Do not forget that we can connect 2 devices to one IDE controller, which is why the IDE cables have connectors for connecting 2 devices at once.

All we need to do is connect the PCI-SATA/IDE controller to the motherboard. To do this we just need to plug it into the connector PCI motherboard and secure with a bolt.

After connecting the connector, all we have to do is secure the hard drive inside the case and connect two wires to it (data cable and power).

Thus we get the following connection diagram.

connect the controller to the motherboard;
connect the IDE cable to the controller;
connect the cable to the hard drive;
connect power to the disk;

Please note that the power connectors for IDE and SATA hard drives are also different. Usually, the computer power supply has plenty of both connectors, but sometimes to connect SATA hard drives you have to use a molex (PATA) to SATA adapter.

If you don't have enough molex power connectors, use special power strips.

After we have sorted out the connection, all we have to do is turn on the computer and make sure that the hard drive is detected in the system. To do this, just go to “My Computer” and look at your local drives. In addition to the existing ones, should local disks of the new hard drive be added?
I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that, although the kit includes a disk with drivers given the controller does not need to install them. The system itself will find the necessary drivers.

Finally, I’ll add one more argument in favor of PCI-SATA/IDE controller. You can safely install an operating system on a hard drive connected through such a controller, which I have proven many times.

This is how this very useful device can make our lives easier.

As always, we leave our impressions, comments, and suggestions for the article in the comments below. I try to answer each of them.
See you in the next lesson, where I will tell you, how to test a hard drive for bad blocks.

PS. I hope many readers have noticed that the design of the site has changed a little. Now I like him even more! I would like to know your opinion about the new site design.

This article will talk about what allows you to connect a hard drive to a computer, namely, the hard drive interface. More precisely, about hard drive interfaces, because a great many technologies have been invented for connecting these devices throughout their existence, and the abundance of standards in this area can confuse an inexperienced user. However, first things first.

Hard drive interfaces (or strictly speaking, external drive interfaces, since they can be not only drives, but also other types of drives, for example, optical drives) are designed to exchange information between these external memory devices and the motherboard. Hard drive interfaces, no less than the physical parameters of the drives, affect many of the operating characteristics of the drives and their performance. In particular, drive interfaces determine such parameters as the speed of data exchange between the hard drive and the motherboard, the number of devices that can be connected to the computer, the ability to create disk arrays, the possibility of hot plugging, support for NCQ and AHCI technologies, etc. . It also depends on the hard drive interface which cable, cord or adapter you will need to connect it to the motherboard.

SCSI - Small Computer System Interface

The SCSI interface is one of the oldest interfaces designed for connecting storage devices in personal computers. This standard appeared in the early 1980s. One of its developers was Alan Shugart, also known as the inventor of the floppy disk drive.

Appearance of the SCSI interface on the board and the cable connecting to it

The SCSI standard (traditionally this abbreviation is read in Russian transcription as “skazi”) was originally intended for use in personal computers, as evidenced by the very name of the format - Small Computer System Interface, or system interface for small computers. However, it so happened that drives of this type were used mainly in top-class personal computers, and subsequently in servers. This was due to the fact that, despite the successful architecture and a wide set of commands, the technical implementation of the interface was quite complex and was not affordable for mass PCs.

However, this standard had a number of features that were not available for other types of interfaces. For example, the cord for connecting Small Computer System Interface devices can have a maximum length of 12 m, and the data transfer speed can be 640 MB/s.

Like the IDE interface that appeared a little later, the SCSI interface is parallel. This means that the interface uses buses that transmit information over several conductors. This feature was one of the limiting factors for the development of the standard, and therefore a more advanced, consistent SAS standard (from Serial Attached SCSI) was developed as its replacement.

SAS - Serial Attached SCSI

This is what the SAS server disk interface looks like

Serial Attached SCSI was developed as an improvement to the rather old Small Computers System Interface for connecting hard drives. Despite the fact that Serial Attached SCSI uses the main advantages of its predecessor, it nevertheless has many advantages. Among them it is worth noting the following:

Use of a common bus by all devices.
The serial communication protocol used by SAS allows for fewer signal lines to be used.
There is no need for bus termination.
Virtually unlimited number of connected devices.
Higher throughput (up to 12 Gbit/s). Future implementations of the SAS protocol are expected to support data transfer rates of up to 24 Gbit/s.
Possibility of connecting drives with Serial ATA interface to the SAS controller.

As a rule, Serial Attached SCSI systems are built on the basis of several components. The main components include:

Target devices. This category includes the actual drives or disk arrays.
Initiators are chips designed to generate requests to target devices.
Data delivery system - cables connecting target devices and initiators

Serial Attached SCSI connectors come in different shapes and sizes, depending on the type (external or internal) and SAS versions. Below are the SFF-8482 internal connector and the SFF-8644 external connector designed for SAS-3:

On the left is an internal SAS connector SFF-8482; On the right is an external SAS SFF-8644 connector with a cable.

A few examples of the appearance of SAS cords and adapters: HD-Mini SAS cord and SAS-Serial ATA adapter cord.

On the left is the HD Mini SAS cable; On the right is an adapter cable from SAS to Serial ATA.

Firewire - IEEE 1394

Today you can often find hard drives with a Firewire interface. Although the Firewire interface can connect any type of peripheral devices to a computer, and it is not a specialized interface designed exclusively for connecting hard drives, Firewire nevertheless has a number of features that make it extremely convenient for this purpose.

FireWire - IEEE 1394 - view on a laptop

The Firewire interface was developed in the mid-1990s. The development began with the well-known company Apple, which needed its own bus, different from USB, for connecting peripheral equipment, primarily multimedia. The specification describing the operation of the Firewire bus is called IEEE 1394.

Firewire is one of the most commonly used high-speed serial external bus formats today. The main features of the standard include:

Possibility of hot connection of devices.
Open bus architecture.
Flexible topology for connecting devices.
Data transfer speeds vary widely – from 100 to 3200 Mbit/s.
The ability to transfer data between devices without a computer.
Possibility of organizing local networks using a bus.
Power transmission via bus.
A large number of connected devices (up to 63).

To connect hard drives (usually via external hard drive enclosures) via the Firewire bus, as a rule, a special SBP-2 standard is used, which uses the Small Computers System Interface protocol command set. It is possible to connect Firewire devices to a regular USB connector, but this requires a special adapter.

IDE - Integrated Drive Electronics

The abbreviation IDE is undoubtedly known to most personal computer users. The interface standard for connecting IDE hard drives was developed by a well-known hard drive manufacturer - Western Digital. The advantage of IDE over other interfaces that existed at the time, in particular the Small Computers System Interface, as well as the ST-506 standard, was that there was no need to install a hard drive controller on the motherboard. The IDE standard implied installing a drive controller on the drive itself, and only a host interface adapter for connecting IDE drives remained on the motherboard.

IDE interface on motherboard

This innovation has improved the operating parameters of the IDE drive due to the fact that the distance between the controller and the drive itself has been reduced. In addition, installing an IDE controller inside the hard drive case made it possible to somewhat simplify both motherboards and the production of hard drives themselves, since the technology gave freedom to manufacturers in terms of optimal organization of the logic of the drive.

The new technology was initially called Integrated Drive Electronics. Subsequently, a standard was developed to describe it, called ATA. This name is derived from the last part of the name of the PC/AT family of computers by adding the word Attachment.

An IDE cable is used to connect a hard drive or other device, such as an optical drive that supports Integrated Drive Electronics technology, to the motherboard. Since ATA refers to parallel interfaces (therefore it is also called Parallel ATA or PATA), that is, interfaces that provide for simultaneous data transmission over several lines, its data cable has a large number of conductors (usually 40, and in recent versions of the protocol it was possible to use 80-core cable). A typical data cable for this standard is flat and wide, but round cables are also available. The power cable for Parallel ATA drives has a 4-pin connector and is connected to the computer's power supply.

Below are examples of IDE cable and round PATA data cable:

Appearance of the interface cable: on the left - flat, on the right in a round braid - PATA or IDE.

Thanks to the comparative low cost of Parallel ATA drives, the ease of implementation of the interface on the motherboard, as well as the ease of installation and configuration of PATA devices for the user, Integrated Drive Electronics type drives have for a long time pushed out devices of other interface types from the market of hard drives for budget-level personal computers.

However, the PATA standard also has a number of disadvantages. First of all, this is a limitation on the length that a Parallel ATA data cable can have - no more than 0.5 m. In addition, the parallel organization of the interface imposes a number of restrictions on the maximum data transfer speed. It does not support the PATA standard and many of the advanced features that other types of interfaces have, such as hot plugging of devices.

SATA - Serial ATA

View of the SATA interface on the motherboard

The SATA (Serial ATA) interface, as the name suggests, is an improvement over ATA. This improvement consists, first of all, in converting the traditional parallel ATA (Parallel ATA) into a serial interface. However, the differences between the Serial ATA standard and the traditional one are not limited to this. In addition to changing the data transmission type from parallel to serial, the data and power connectors also changed.

Below is the SATA data cable:

Data cable for SATA interface

This made it possible to use a much longer cord and increase the data transfer speed. However, the downside was the fact that PATA devices, which were present on the market in huge quantities before the advent of SATA, became impossible to connect directly to the new connectors. True, most new motherboards still have old connectors and support connecting older devices. However, the reverse operation - connecting a new type of drive to an old motherboard usually causes much more problems. For this operation, the user usually requires a Serial ATA to PATA adapter. The power cable adapter usually has a relatively simple design.

Serial ATA to PATA power adapter:

On the left is a general view of the cable; On the right is an enlarged view of the PATA and Serial ATA connectors

However, the situation is more complicated with a device such as an adapter for connecting a serial interface device to a parallel interface connector. Typically, an adapter of this type is made in the form of a small microcircuit.

Appearance of a universal bidirectional adapter between SATA - IDE interfaces

Currently, the Serial ATA interface has practically replaced Parallel ATA, and PATA drives can now be found mainly only in fairly old computers. Another feature of the new standard that ensured its wide popularity was support.

Type of adapter from IDE to SATA

You can tell us a little more about NCQ technology. The main advantage of NCQ is that it allows you to use ideas that have long been implemented in the SCSI protocol. In particular, NCQ supports a system for sequencing read/write operations across multiple drives installed in a system. Thus, NCQ can significantly improve the performance of drives, especially hard drive arrays.

Type of adapter from SATA to IDE

To use NCQ, technology support is required on the hard drive side, as well as on the motherboard host adapter. Almost all adapters that support AHCI also support NCQ. In addition, some older proprietary adapters also support NCQ. Also, for NCQ to work, it requires support from the operating system.

eSATA - External SATA

It is worth mentioning separately the eSATA (External SATA) format, which seemed promising at the time, but never became widespread. As you can guess from the name, eSATA is a type of Serial ATA designed for connecting exclusively external drives. The eSATA standard offers most of the capabilities of the standard for external devices, i.e. internal Serial ATA, in particular, the same system of signals and commands and the same high speed.

eSATA connector on a laptop

However, eSATA also has some differences from the internal bus standard that gave birth to it. In particular, eSATA supports a longer data cable (up to 2 m) and also has higher power requirements for drives. Additionally, eSATA connectors are slightly different from standard Serial ATA connectors.

Compared to other external buses such as USB and Firewire, eSATA, however, has one significant drawback. While these buses allow the device to be powered via the bus cable itself, the eSATA drive requires special connectors for power. Therefore, despite the relatively high data transfer speed, eSATA is currently not very popular as an interface for connecting external drives.

Conclusion

Information stored on a hard drive cannot be useful to the user or accessible to application programs until it is accessed by the computer's central processing unit. Hard drive interfaces provide a means of communication between these drives and the motherboard. Today, there are many different types of hard drive interfaces, each of which has its own advantages, disadvantages and characteristic features. We hope that the information provided in this article will be largely useful to the reader, because the choice of a modern hard drive is largely determined not only by its internal characteristics, such as capacity, cache memory, access and rotation speed, but also by the interface for which it was developed.