Connections for hard drive

[SirFlamenco]

Hi, 

 

I just build my first pc and I am wondering if I forgot a cable for the hard drive. 

 

 

[minibois]

Nope, you need a SATA power from your PSU and a SATA data that goes to your motherboard.

 

Those little pins are a legacy thing, from when you had to set master and slave drives.

[Cyberspirit]

1 minute ago, SirFlamenco said:

Hi, I just build my first pc and I am wondering if I forgot a cable for the hard drive. 

 

You don't need to plug anything into that so don't worry.

[Unimaginative Name]

It's a jumper block that goes unused in most cases. As long as you have power from your PSU and data to your mobo, you are perfectly fine.

[Kaigott]

That's a common feature on many hard drives that you really never have to worry about!

[Naeaes]

2 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Nope, you need a SATA power from your PSU and a SATA data that goes to your motherboard.

 

Those little pins are a legacy thing, from when you had to set master and slave drives.

That's not quite correct. For PATA (aka IDE) we used the pins and jumpers to set the drive to act as a master or slave which was a must for the parallel interface, as you said. But SATA (Serial ATA) interface doesn't have masters and slaves. The pins on SATA drives are for other, non-standard and manufacturer-specific, uses. Some utilize them to limit the power draw, some use it to cap the capacity, some are for throttling down the transfer speeds and so on and so forth, but again, not for a master/slave selection.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Those little pins are a legacy thing, from when you had to set master and slave drives.

This gets me interested. Why would they add those jumper thingies? (btw, doesn't really look like jumpers, I can only see a single row while IDE had double row pins) And why I am so interested... SATA = 1 cable, one drive. No need to set master/slave/CS?!?