Hi
Many SATA hard disks have test pins for use by the manufacturer
some are for serial RS232 communication with controller
I cant see make & model of hard disk so cant look up manufactures documentation
You only need to worry about data cable to motherboard and power cable to PSU
What are you talking about connecting SSD to external hard drive?
on some motherboards you can use a small SATA SSD as a cache for the internal hard drive
regards
Mike Barnes