Hard Drive Power Connector

[1591tower]

I will be installing a new psu soon and would like some understanding of hdd interfaces. Is the 15 pin connector the standard power connector for hdd today, and Molex 4 pin an older power connector? Also are there any other forms of power connectors besides these two and do most hard drives accomadate the 15 pin power connector? Any help on this would be great cause I find it a bit confusing. Thank you

 

[1591tower]

Btw when I refer to the 15 pin power connector I mean the SATA 15 pin power connector and not the IDE ribbon like power connectors of old.

 

[VincentP]

The 15-pin connector is the standard power connector for SATA drives. This is typically called a sata power connector, although this is different to the sata data connector.
The molex power connector was standard for IDE drives.
There is also a combined sata power and data connector often used on laptop drives.

A new power supply will come with sata and molex connectors. You will typically use the sata conectors for hard drives and DVD drives while the molex connectors are still used for fans mostly.
If you want to use a sata drive with an old power supply, you can get molex to sata adapters. The sata connector has 3V pins that are not powered by these adapters but I think drive manufacturers have avoided using the 3V pins for that reason. 12V and 5V pins are used instead.

 

[1591tower]

ty for your response i'm confused cause when i look at my present old psu 220 watts the power connectors going into the hdd and optical drive are black and they look smaller than the wider 15 pin sata power connectors. Can you or anybody make sense of this? Ty for your help

 

[VincentP]

ty for your response i'm confused cause when i look at my present old psu 220 watts the power connectors going into the hdd and optical drive are black and they look smaller than the wider 15 pin sata power connectors. Can you or anybody make sense of this? Ty for your help

You could try including a photo.
Molex power connectors are bigger than sata power connectors.
The sata data connector is smaller, but this connects to the motherboard or some other hard drive controller rather than the power supply.