Re: Sata cabling

Gerry wrote:
I have had a disk connection problem which seems to relate to failing sata cables. The BIOS has failed intermittently to detect one or both hard drives. The problem was more obvious with the master drive so I replaced the cable 14 days ago and there was no further problem until this morning. The problem this morning was the slave drive so I have replaced the cable for that drive. It has now been working for a bit over two hour.

The problem first became apparent a month ago when I found the system would freeze after it had been running some time. Resetting sometimes worked and sometimes resulted in a failed boot. Eventually the system would boot but the problem would happen again some hours later or the next day. Sometimes there have been Event Viewer reports -mainly ID: 11 referring to the Controller. Often the problem is unreported. This is probably because the Error is occurring before Event Viewer starts.

From a friend I got these comments.

"In my view, the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. A sort-of flat
sleeve slides over a notched part on the edge of the board whereupon sit
some exposed/un-insulated traces. Flat conductors encased within a plastic
bit are slid into contact with them. There is no mechanism but friction to
keep the 'connector' in place. Entirely inadequate. It is not designed for
repeated make/break insertion/removal. If subjected even to a low number of
such operations (design spec is 50), it will fail. (5 000 for an eSATA
connector). If I have to repeatedly disconnect-connect a drive during
testing, I replace the cable as a matter of routine."

I am interested in knowing whether others have encountered this problem and how common place it is?

TIA


The SATA connector design was centered around "server backplane" applications,
making it easy to "plug" a drive into a backplane, for a cable free installation.
The usage of the connectors for desktops, was an afterthought. (The SATA
committee has done a few things, showing a lack of judgment, like their
naming conventions.)

In a backplane application, the drive goes "straight down" onto the connector,
avoiding wiggling and breaking of the wafer. Mechanical guidance of the drive
insertion, helps prevent problems. Motherboard/desktop applications, on the other
hand, have less protection from that (depending on the connector brand). I've
even heard of some users, managing to pull the connector right off
the motherboard (Asrock).

The initial connector design had no positive retention features. Later
connectors fixed that. (But for the locking latch type, both the motherboard
connector and the cable must be compatible. A locking latch cable with a
non locking motherboard, won't help.) My current computer uses no locking
latch, but they did manage to incorporate retention into the design. The
cable won't fall off if I wiggle it. It has a moderate insertion force
to install it (spring loaded dimple ?).

SATA connectors incorporate keying, in the form of the L shaped plastic.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/SATA_Data_Cable.jpg/150px-SATA_Data_Cable.jpg

Western Digital SecureConnect, was something that shipped before cables
had lock latches. They used mechanical features present on their brand of hard
drive, to guide the connector into the drive. So that solves the problem
at the hard drive end. Notice that at this point in time, the drive
was still using "Molex" power. AFAIK, other drive brands would not
have the square holes, to fit this cable. The square holes help guide
the connector during insertion.

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2579-001075.pdf

All of this means, people will have seen a variety of user
experiences. All the way from "no problems here", to "my cable
keeps falling off, so I glued it on" :-)

Paul
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Sata cabling
    ... The computer is a desktop with a Gigabyte 915/910 Series motherboard. ... two drives are a Seagate and a Maxtor. ... the SATA 'Connector' is an engineering blunder. ... cables had lock latches. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Externally connecting internal IDE drives
    ... there are several problems with using any other attachment than IDE ... >actual removable drives that are housed in the drive carriers. ... Why put a SCSI cable onto a connector configured to drive IDE/ATAPI? ... customer several cables to take the floppy interface from the motherboard ...
    (comp.arch.embedded)
  • Re: Whcih drive is which on IDE cable?
    ... Simply look at the jumpers on the back of the drive and remove the one that's jumpered as the Slave, unless you would happen to have the OS installed on it, which then you would remove the Master. ... Cable Select uses a special cable that uses a CSEL signal by grounding pin 28 to the IDE controller on the motherboard and the wire for pin 28 only goes to the middle connector. ... If you swap the drives between the connectors on the CSEL cable, the drives Master/Slave configuration will swap on the drives as well. ... Unlike the old cables, with the 80-conductor cable, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Whcih drive is which on IDE cable?
    ... Simply look at the jumpers on the back of the drive and remove the one that's jumpered as the Slave, unless you would happen to have the OS installed on it, which then you would remove the Master. ... Cable Select uses a special cable that uses a CSEL signal by grounding pin 28 to the IDE controller on the motherboard and the wire for pin 28 only goes to the middle connector. ... If you swap the drives between the connectors on the CSEL cable, the drives Master/Slave configuration will swap on the drives as well. ... Unlike the old cables, with the 80-conductor cable, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Company network slowdown
    ... Cables hanging from the overhead were standard. ... >tower because the automagic VSWR meter relay had failed to start the ... >transportable between different drives and error rate was very low. ... I avoided UHF connectors and right angle adapters. ...
    (alt.internet.wireless)
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