Help Identifying Laptop HDD Connector

[jbseven]

I'm having trouble identifying a mainboard hdd connector for a sony vpcsa36ga laptop. 2 out of 4 ssd's are dead and I'm trying to figure out if I can convert the horrible setup into a single ssd system.

A ribbon cable connector (pic1) connects to the singular mainboard connector (pic2). This ribbon cable (pic3) splits into two (LIF?) connectors (pic4), each of which is shared by 2 ssd's. Any help with identifying the connector would be appreciated!

 

[hang-the-9]

I have never seen a laptop with space for 4 hard drives, not even the very high end workstation class ones.

Are you sure you are talking about the hard drives? Sony likes to use propitiatory technology, that connector, if used for a hard drive, it's probably nothing more than a re-pinned SATA connection. Actually many laptops use adapters for the hard drive connections, just Sony is really well known for changing common connectors to something that only works for them.

 

[jbseven]

the "four" ssd's are basically 2x 1.8" pcb's, each having 1x "ssd" printed on either side of the pcb. so yeah, plenty of space for them.

of course, since we're talking about 4 ssd's effectively sharing a single (modified) sata2 port, it's akin to modifying a pci express ssd to work on the isa port of a 486DX4 - utterly retarded.

that sucks if it's a non staandard connector since i'm now restricted to buying the same crappy ssd's for an obscene price. i knew hp laptops to do this but not sony. guess i'll have to install a usb3 ssd or something and boot from there.

 

[hang-the-9]

the "four" ssd's are basically 2x 1.8" pcb's, each having 1x "ssd" printed on either side of the pcb. so yeah, plenty of space for them.

of course, since we're talking about 4 ssd's effectively sharing a single (modified) sata2 port, it's akin to modifying a pci express ssd to work on the isa port of a 486DX4 - utterly retarded.

that sucks if it's a non staandard connector since i'm now restricted to buying the same crappy ssd's for an obscene price. i knew hp laptops to do this but not sony. guess i'll have to install a usb3 ssd or something and boot from there.

That is not a system with 4 SSDs like you said, all that is are spaces on the motherboard for possible locations. It's the same thing as having a fridge with a left or right door config, you won't have both but you can pick where you want the location to be. Nothing to do with how the laptop operates.

Unless those connections are soldered to the drive, you can buy adapters for them. Every laptop I've seen with modified connections (usually to change the angle or for space) just had an adapter attached to a regular SATA drive.

 

[jbseven]

That is not a system with 4 SSDs like you said, all that is are spaces on the motherboard for possible locations. It's the same thing as having a fridge with a left or right door config, you won't have both but you can pick where you want the location to be. Nothing to do with how the laptop operates.

Unless those connections are soldered to the drive, you can buy adapters for them. Every laptop I've seen with modified connections (usually to change the angle or for space) just had an adapter attached to a regular SATA drive.

I'm not sure i follow your fridge analogy. this is a single door fridge with 4 drawers running a compressor that can barely manage the load from a single drawer. maybe my explanation needs some work...

see the ssd on the pic? if you flip the pcb, you'll see another label with a different serial #. this pcb is secured to a bracket, and the underside of the bracket has a second pcb secured to it with 2 more labels/serial #s. So the system identifies 4 ssd's with 4 unique serial #s and is set to raid 0 across the 4 ssd's. all 4 ssd's are connected to a single (and only) modified sata2 port on the motherboard by rigging a cable to split 4 ways(or 2 ways + 2 ways). and since a single sata2 port can only offer about 380MBps...

As for an adapter, i was not able to find one that would do LIF cable>SATA ssd. plenty that do LIF ssd>SATA cable though. also since each of the 2xLIF connectors on this notebook are expecting 2 hard drives each, not sure if a regular adapter would work... your thoughts?

 

[hang-the-9]

OK, now I see what this thing is, it's not really 4 SSD drives as in full drives, or even mSATA drives, they setup flash memory boards on that system. I doubt you can find anything to change things around without finding out from Sony how things are connected and what does what. You are not just looking at changing cables, how the system works has to be changed. If it has a RAID BIOS, did you try going in and breaking the RAID setup? It may see the drive on it's own.

I don't like Sony, too hard to work with since they mess with connectors and standards all the time.

 

[jbseven]

I doubt you can find anything to change things around without finding out from Sony how things are connected and what does what. You are not just looking at changing cables, how the system works has to be changed. If it has a RAID BIOS, did you try going in and breaking the RAID setup? It may see the drive on it's own.

I did have to delete the raid, and all 4 could be formatted. BUT 2 of them caused constant read errors, bsod's and tend to disappear entirely until a cold reboot.

Been doing some research and so far, the best option is an odd to hdd caddy. There are similar-ish sony models that provide a 2xsata cable and may use the same mb connector but $90 for what is essentially just a crappy sata cable is just not worth it for a 'maybe'.

 

[jbseven]

For anyone who's in the same boat and looking at this thread, I managed to find the right parts to convert this laptop into a single ssd setup,

Here is sony's parts list for reference.

I replaced the 4xLIF RAID SSD cable (the 'V030 FPC SSD 2CON X2') with a single SSD cable ('V030 FPC SSD SATA X1'). They have the same number of pins on the motherboard end. I also purchased the brackets for the single SSD and installed a Samsung 850 pro 256GB. the cable, bracket and HDD all fit perfectly, works perfectly, the laptop runs MUCH faster now (boot to desktop is 17-18s), and is futureproofed against obscenely priced sony parts/availability, should the hdd fail.

If you want to set AHCI, the only possible way to do this is by flashing a modified BIOS. This is more risk than reward for me as 1 SSD in RAID is still more than enough performance-wise.

Parts required for 1x SATA SSD setup:
V030 FPC SSD SATA X1 : A-1816-282-B or A-1816-282-A or A-1827-751-B or A-1827-751-A
V030 BRACKET HDD R : 4-278-758-01
V030 BRACKET HDD L : 4-278-759-01
2.5" SATA SSD of your choice.