What is a sata 3.3 cable?

[Cirkustanz]

So I'm finally building a new PC.
I have 4 shucked drives from WD externals.
The PSU I am going to use for the new computer is a seasonic vertex gx1200w. Here is a link to the cables it comes with: https://seasonic.com/vertex-gx#cables
Among them are various lengths of sata cables, and I notice it includes 1 sata 3.3 cable which has 2 connectors on it.

I'm familiar with the third pin on the sata connector "issue" that causes these drives to not spin up for many people unless they use some kapton tape or a molex to sata adapter to power it. On my current system I never had to do that, although one drive would just mysteriously not work so I left it as an external.

I have not heard about a sata 3.3 cable before and I guess I am wondering if my drives will work with the new PSU. Is that sata 3.3 cable one that does pass 3.3 voltage to what it is connected to? Or would it be one that does not?

 

[toast0]

I have not heard about a sata 3.3 cable before and I guess I am wondering if my drives will work with the new PSU. Is that sata 3.3 cable one that does pass 3.3 voltage to what it is connected to? Or would it be one that does not?

That's an excellent question because 3.3v is the voltage, and 3.3 is the revision of the sata spec where they removed 3.3v from pin 3 and instead use it for power disable. It could be either. You should be able to push the 3.3v pin out of the cable at the PSU end if you need to, since that's fully modular. Or just cut the orange wire, YOLO.

 

[Format _C:]

Just a quick observation the SATA 3.3 cable looks to have 4 wires where-as the standard SATA cables look to have 5 wires so my guess is the SATA 3.3 does NOT pass the 3.3V as there is not enough wires for that.

 

[Cirkustanz]

Just a quick observation the SATA 3.3 cable looks to have 4 wires where-as the standard SATA cables look to have 5 wires so my guess is the SATA 3.3 does NOT pass the 3.3V as there is not enough wires for that.

Wow. Great observation.

I'm assuming that I'll have to use the 3.3 cables for at least one of my drives. I'm going to reach out to Seasonic to see if I can purchase another one of the 3.3 cables.

 

[sirmonkey1985]

So I'm finally building a new PC.
I have 4 shucked drives from WD externals.
The PSU I am going to use for the new computer is a seasonic vertex gx1200w. Here is a link to the cables it comes with: https://seasonic.com/vertex-gx#cables
Among them are various lengths of sata cables, and I notice it includes 1 sata 3.3 cable which has 2 connectors on it.

I'm familiar with the third pin on the sata connector "issue" that causes these drives to not spin up for many people unless they use some kapton tape or a molex to sata adapter to power it. On my current system I never had to do that, although one drive would just mysteriously not work so I left it as an external.

I have not heard about a sata 3.3 cable before and I guess I am wondering if my drives will work with the new PSU. Is that sata 3.3 cable one that does pass 3.3 voltage to what it is connected to? Or would it be one that does not?

with the sata 3.3 cable look and see if/what pins are missing inside the connector and if it matches up with the 3.3v pin on the drive then you'll know. but i'm going to guess it's just missing the 3.3v wire as well.

i just pull the 3.3v pin off the drive which is super easy given they only come with a 1 year warranty nor am i honestly ever going to RMA a hard drive. if it dies it dies. but always check first if the drive will work without doing it because some of the drives don't have the 3.3v issue since they may or may not always be enterprise drives. of the 5 white label drives i have 2 of them are white labeled red drives that don't have the 3.3v issue while the other 3 do. i haven't messed with any of the seagate drives though.

 

[Cirkustanz]

with the sata 3.3 cable look and see if/what pins are missing inside the connector and if it matches up with the 3.3v pin on the drive then you'll know. but i'm going to guess it's just missing the 3.3v wire as well.

i just pull the 3.3v pin off the drive which is super easy given they only come with a 1 year warranty nor am i honestly ever going to RMA a hard drive. if it dies it dies. but always check first if the drive will work without doing it because some of the drives don't have the 3.3v issue since they may or may not always be enterprise drives. of the 5 white label drives i have 2 of them are white labeled red drives that don't have the 3.3v issue while the other 3 do. i haven't messed with any of the seagate drives though.

Yeah I am hoping that most of the drives will still work by default. I am hoping to set all of them as hot swappable since the case I will be using has easy access to the drives for that purpose. I'm pretty sure in order to select that as an option in the UEFI that the drives must have the 3.3v cable connected. Assuming I'm correct on that, I think 3 out of 4 of my drives should have no issue with either point, and I'll be able to use the 3.3 cable that is included and the drive will work, I just won't be able to have that drive be a hotswap drive.