Desktop power management.

[Ajfer03]

Hey everyone, I recently picked up a new computer  and noticed the limited availably of SATA power available. I'm pretty experienced everything computer wise, but I haven't been sure about this topic for a while. I have a bit of a problem here. There are going to be a total of 3 SATA drives in the system and there are only 2 SATA power connectors available. I have some molex to SATA adapters, but I want the best performance from my PC as possible. The drives that are going to be installed are; A Seagate 2.5 Inch 1TB Barracuda HDD, A KingSpec 64 GB SSD, and A Samsung 320 GB HDD. Which one should I give the molex power to? In other words, which one requires the least amount of power to run efficiently?

Thanks

[DaveLembke]

Well the adapter can be used for power hungry as well as green drives using little power. SATA cables pretty much use 5V and 12V. The other voltage leg is not necessary on most drives.

[VintronNZ]

Hi
None of the 3 drives use a lot of power. So cable for the tidiest looking.
Just an idea as molex connectors are sometimes a little problematic, when you get a good connection put a tie wrap around the plug and socket to keep it held tight closed.  Also if you gently pull on each wire to make sure they won't come out of the plug or socket.

[camerongray]

It doesn't really matter what you connect to the adapter although one important thing is that there is a large amount of SATA connectors (found mostly on Molex to SATA adapters) which have a design flaw that has been known to cause them to overheat and potentially catch fire.  This is a pretty decent video that shows how to spot the differences between the safe adapters and the ones that are prone to cause problems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TataDaUNEFc