Frank Weg
2018-06-01 05:04:32 UTC
I bought a hard drive for a dual-boot Win7/Win10 desktop, and bought the
SATA cable, but I didn't realize until I got home that the only unused
power connector available out of the 530Watt power supply is the round-pin
4-pin molex type and not the flat wide SATA power connector.
There are only 3 flat SATA power cables coming out of the power supply.
+ One flat SATA power cable is going to the dvd drive
+ One flat SATA power cable goes to disk1
+ One flat SATA power cable goes to disk2
But I just put a third disk in place today which needs a power connection.
Googling I saw that the flat wide SATA power connector has 3.3 volts (in
addition to 5 & 12 volts) while the 4-pin molex does not have 3.3 volts (it
only has the 5 and 12 volts).
The hard drive is a brand new 1TB WD Blue which doesn't say on the box or
in the instructions if it needs the missing 3.3VDC.
But I need to buy "something" to power the new hard disk drive.
Either a new power supply (which is probably overkill) because this power
supply only has 3 SATA flat power cables, or an adapter from molex to SATA,
or an adapter from one SATA to two SATA cable ends.
What is generally the best idea when you need 1 more flat SATA power?
SATA cable, but I didn't realize until I got home that the only unused
power connector available out of the 530Watt power supply is the round-pin
4-pin molex type and not the flat wide SATA power connector.
There are only 3 flat SATA power cables coming out of the power supply.
+ One flat SATA power cable is going to the dvd drive
+ One flat SATA power cable goes to disk1
+ One flat SATA power cable goes to disk2
But I just put a third disk in place today which needs a power connection.
Googling I saw that the flat wide SATA power connector has 3.3 volts (in
addition to 5 & 12 volts) while the 4-pin molex does not have 3.3 volts (it
only has the 5 and 12 volts).
The hard drive is a brand new 1TB WD Blue which doesn't say on the box or
in the instructions if it needs the missing 3.3VDC.
But I need to buy "something" to power the new hard disk drive.
Either a new power supply (which is probably overkill) because this power
supply only has 3 SATA flat power cables, or an adapter from molex to SATA,
or an adapter from one SATA to two SATA cable ends.
What is generally the best idea when you need 1 more flat SATA power?