[SOLVED] Insufficient HDD power? Limits to PSU SATA supply.

[thenbentobox]

I am having issues with connecting a HDD up.

To get some background stuff out of the way:
1.) The disk has already been initialised previously on the same system and is functioning properly, at least currently and previously

I have a 4tb WD Black HDD that I am trying to connect to my computer and it has been giving me some issues. First, it wasn't initialising due to an I/O error. After contacting my MB manufacturer (MSI) I was given a beta version of the BIOS and after that I got the HDD to connect and be initialised. Even transferred files to the drive for 5 hours.

However, after turning on the system today, the HDD was missing and going into Disk Management, it said it wasn't initialised and needed to be formatted.

After troubleshooting for a while, I noticed that the HDD was not spooling up. It appears in disk management, but won't spool. Every time I tried to run a data recovery scan it would be stuck at 0% with no spooling sounds. It was daisy chained to two other devices: Corsair Commander Pro and 2 200mm ARGB fans.
After playing around with different combinations, I found that it would work when connected to a smaller chain of SATA devices (like my SSD and node) and then fail when it was connected to the Commander. I will say that I have the Commander hooked up to an NZXT Kraken x73 as well as one of the Corsair USB Lighting hubs by the two USB headers, three temperature probes, and full RGB fan lighting.

In the end, due to the space requirements and cable management, I ended up just giving it it's own dedicated SATA PSU cable which, so far, seems to be working...

My question: is there a wattage limit to the SATA cables? I'm not familiar with my PSU SATA wattage per main connection but I am assuming I went over its limit so the HDD couldn't spool up? The PSU is the EVGA t2 850W so I would have assumed it would have enough power to run to everything (PC part picker estimated around 550). But given the number of combinations I have tried this seemed to be the only solution. Is there a way to determine how much wattage everything will run on one SATA cable and compare that with the PSU to determine how many SATA cables are needed?

This is mainly a reference posting since I seem to have found an solution, but I wanted to just get some feedback for future builds and less headaches for my sanity. Sorry if it is all over the place, I just crunched it to a solution with two minutes left before clocking into work with all the wires just hanging out the side of my computer...

Thanks! Let me know if anything needs to be clarified.

 

[jonnyguru]

Yes.

SATA power connectors suck. Those tiny pins only support so much current. A fully loaded Commander maxes out the specification for SATA power. So the voltage at the HDD is probably below the HDD motor's ability to spin up.

 

[thenbentobox]

Yes.

SATA power connectors suck. Those tiny pins only support so much current. A fully loaded Commander maxes out the specification for SATA power. So the voltage at the HDD is probably below the HDD motor's ability to spin up.

How much wattage/voltage would you say SATA connections can support?

 

[jonnyguru]

How much wattage/voltage would you say SATA connections can support?

You mean current.

4.5A of current per voltage (there's +3.3V, +5V and +12V). Maximum 7.5 to 9A across the entire connector, meaning you can't fully load all three voltages on a SATA connector.