Question About Seagate Iron Wolf NAS Drive

Michael McChesney · August 4, 2019

I am still tinkering with my first PC build. I built it with a new 500 GB NVME SSD, but transferred an 8 TB WD Red HDD I had installed in my old PC. That particular drive only has 2 TB of free space left. "Only 2 TB" is kind of an amazing statement to me given that my first PC from 1995 only had a 420 MB HDD. Anyway, back in 2019, I just added a 10 TB Seagate Iron Wolf NAS HDD. I thought I was going to have to post here asking for help because Windows wasn't recognizing it, but Google and I got it working. But I did notice something on the drive that I thought might be the problem (but wasn't). I am curious about it though. The drive has from left to right a power connection port, a SATA port, and right next to the SATA port, 4 exposed pins. I haven't seen that on a HDD before, at least not that I can remember. Does anyone know what the pins are for? Are they a feature of all Seagate drives or just larger capacity drives? I know I've bought Seagate drives before, but come to think of it, they may have all been external drives.

Electronics Wizardy · August 4, 2019

Depends on the exact model of hdd, but there often for jumpers to limit sata speed or other features. Some hdds use this connector for temp sensors like in the imacs. These have been on hdds for decades.

You don't need to use it or worry about the connector

Michael McChesney · August 5, 2019

I stopped worrying about it as soon as Windows assigned the HDD a drive letter. I was just curious because there were no exposed pins on my WD 8 TB HDD. I just discovered another issue. Apparently my PC considers this drive removable. I think I know why. When I discovered the BIOS recognized it, I enabled hot swappable, just to see if that made Windows recognize it. I later learned I had to go into Disk Management. I used to be fairly knowledgeable (or maybe I just knew a couple of more things than my friends and family). But at least I am learning.

I really really appreciate all the help I've received on this forum. Thank you.