Confused about SATA

SimpleSimon

SimpleSimon

New Member
I'm confused about SATA. I bought a HDD and it has the IDE connector on the back. Now I look at other HDD and I see they have SATA connections. So I am guessing the SATA part is in place of the IDE port. But, I also see 4 prong power to SATA adapters which I assume is for power? So which is it? Could I use a 4 pin to SATA adapter for my IDE style HDD? Or is it strictly SATA=power or SATA=connection? I'm lost!!
 
SATA HDDs can only use SATA power and transfer cables, IDE HDDs can only use IDE transfer and Molex (4 prong) power cables.
 
I dont know what would happen, I dont think I have a old one around with both to give it a try:D , you would think they would have thought somebody would do it so, one might just cancel the other out so the drive would not burn up,
 
my computer's got one of the very first sata drives, a western digital 2500 that has both molex and sata power hookups and it came from the factory with BOTH power connectors plugged in

didn't do anything to harm it....

unfortunately, much to my dismay, it also did little to bump me up to sata 2.0 speeds :)
 
Honestly, I would imagine that any drive with SATA and Molex connectors would have some sort of safe gourd that would only allow it to draw power from one at a time.
 
It would make sense that one is switched off or simply not drawn from if both are connected at the same time. Still I wouldn't want to try it with anything but a nearly junk drive.
 
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