Can I connect two drives with one SATA power cable?

[ITnonsavy]

I have a SSD and a HDD. Do I connect with 2 ends of it or do I use two cables (1 for each drive)?
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/13-07-23/bc050_w_h_2.jpg

If not, why do they have 3 ends to it?


Thanks.

 

[ThatVietGuy]

Each drive needs its own power connector - doesn't matter if the connectors are part of one cable, though.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

With sata interface it is one data cable for each drive

With old ata (ide or pata) devices 1 cable can support 2 drives

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[avarice]

Lets consolidate the answers....both are fundamentally correct.

The power for your SATA comes from the PSU and is generally a daisy chained collection of around 3 SATA power connectors (give or take).

The data cables connect one SATA data point on the motherboard to the SATA drive.

As such - you can connect a number of drives to the same power - you can even use splitters if absolutely needed (not generally recommended) and you will need the same number of data cables as you do SATA drives.


That should satisfy your question.

 

[ITnonsavy]

Lets consolidate the answers....both are fundamentally correct.

The power for your SATA comes from the PSU and is generally a daisy chained collection of around 3 SATA power connectors (give or take).

The data cables connect one SATA data point on the motherboard to the SATA drive.

As such - you can connect a number of drives to the same power - you can even use splitters if absolutely needed (not generally recommended) and you will need the same number of data cables as you do SATA drives.


That should satisfy your question.

Thanks. That did help.
I have another question: In one of the packs that I opened up, there seems to be two types of data cables? It is L-shaped and the other is flat. The flat seems to be the only one that I can plug in since my drives are mounted to the side of the case (Fractal Design Define S case). Are there differences between these two SATA 6Gb/s data cables?

 

[ThatVietGuy]

No, the angled ones are for some cases where the drives are mounted perpendicular to the side panel and you need the clearance with angled connectors. Other than the shape they work exactly the same.