HDD and SSD required connections.

[DaDiRa]

Hello there. Before I ask my questions, I want you to know that everything I ask is pure thoughts that came one after another while I was thinking about a possible build. I haven't done anything in a real build, so it may be a bit "confusing".
So, I was thinking about a build with the maximun storage for my standards, and I thought that two 1TB HDDs in RAID 0 and an SSD for the operating system would do the job. But then I started thinking about how possible is this, and what are the limits when it comes to adding HDDs to your system.
To begin with, although I'm pretty sure an HDD requires a SATA and a "Pin Cable" (can't think of another name right now) for the power-supply, I want to make sure this hasn't changed for the SSDs or for the latest HDDs. Also, I want to know how many Pins a cable for an HDD has (on both tips) and if it's standard for all of them, or differs from company to company. Something it didn't even came to my mind, until I saw it on google, is the power supply. How important is a good power supply when using 3 Hard Disks on one system, and how many Watts should it be? Last but not least, how many connections does the motherboard have and how are they called? Should I look for a specific number when I build a system with many Hard Drives, or every motherboard can handle it?
That's all for now. I hope my random thoughts didn't confuse you. Thanks in advance!

 

[Suztera]

No they all conform to the same standard. It should still be the same.
For looking at power draw, you need to list your planned pc specs first and your power supply. Yes it's better to have a good quality power supply.
The cables required are called Sata data cables and Sata power cables.
Most motherboard will come with 4-6 sata ports. It will depends on what motherboard you get.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

By pin cable, I suspect you are talking about the older style, ATA cables, which could have 40 or 80 wires, but 40 pins? It's been a few years since ribbon style, HDD cables were used. As the previous poster mentioned, the cables are standardized SATA for both HDD and SSD, so you use the same cable for either drive.

Most power supplies that will be adequate for your graphics card of choice, if gaming, will have enough to power your HDD and SSD combination of choice. If you skimped so much on your PSU that you don't have enough left for the drives, you're likely also running close enough to experience issues with the GPU or CPU as well. Don't skimp on the power supply.

 

[Kendo4life1]

To install an HDD/SSD, you need one power cable, which looks like this: http://www.just-cases.com/data/inpc_products/satapowerparts/Power3xSATA_IDC_1500x1000.jpg

the white part is probably not there, it will just be wires coming from your power supply.
with pretty much any power supply, you will get 2 of those cables with 3-4 connectors at the end.
so you could technically power 6-8 hard drives.

now, to use the drive, you will need a SATA cable that looks like this: http://edweb.tusd.k12.az.us/sandre/computers/sata.jpg
your motherboard will have multiple slots to connect them to: http://vermeulen.ca/PICT5306-io-ports-sata-usb.jpg
they can also be aimed to the side, the ones in the picture are aimed upwards.

on your hdd, there will be 2 slots for these connectors, current HDD's/SSD's only have the 2 on the left, this is the best picture i could find: http://www.ixbt.com/storage/hitachi-7k400/hitachi7k400sata-connectors.jpg

depending on the power supply and the motherboard you have, you can install the amount of HDD's/SSD's that you have the ports for.

i hope this helped.

 

[Kendo4life1]

also, you don't really need a good power supply to power some HDD's/SSD's since they don't take that much power, just make sure it has enough power connectors for the amount of HDD's/SSD's you want to use.
on your motherboard, make sure it has enough SATA connectors to be able to run all your drives aswell.
all the new or current HDD's/SSD's just use one power connector and one SATA connector, thats all you will need.

 

[DaDiRa]

Thanks for the answer. The pictures really helped and you covered all of my questions.