Sata to IDE cable

[Brent N]

I may be going out on a limb here but I have an old computer that has 4 sata connections on the Motherboard and 1 IDE. Currently I have 2 Sata HDD connected and 2 IDE drives connected. I have 2 more IDE Drives that I would like to put in the computer but only have the 2 SATA ports open. Is there a cable (Not an adapter but Cable) that can convert it from SATA to IDE? I have looked around for a couple of days and can only find Adapters. I don't have room to put in a adapter in the tower with out taking the chance of doing something to the motherboard. I am using this computer just as a back up- system. And have the extra drives I would like to put in but no way of hoking hem up. Any suggestions?

 

[amtseung]

I don't think such a cable exists. They're wired completely differently inside. You're probably going to need adapters, and at that point, may as well stack them up and make a tower of external drives.

 

[sykozis]

You won't find an IDE to SATA cable.... You have to use an adapter. The signalling between IDE and SATA is different. IDE is a parallel interface whereas SATA is a serial interface.

 

[clarkjd]

You WILL need an adapter IDE is basically a parallel implimentation, while SATA is a serial one.

Beaten again!
I have Got to start refreshing the post before I answer.😀

 

[ex_bubblehead]

As stated above, an adapter is absolutely required.

You'll need something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Generic-IDE-SATA-Adapter/dp/B000RK89M4

One per PATA drive. It cannot be done with a simple cable.

 

[Brent N]

Thanks for the fast replies, This is what I figured. Trying to not put anymore money into the system than I have to but looks like I'll have to add a bit more to it than I planned. I have several old computers that were given to me and just trying to get something working with the different types of drives.

 

[BFG-9000]

The adapters fit on the end of the IDE drives, not on the motherboard. Unfortunately their cost would go a long way toward just buying SATA optical or disk drives.

One alternative is to spend the money instead on an adapter to convert USB to IDE instead, which would make the drives useful for holding offline backups.

 

[sykozis]

Just for informational purposes. There are IDE to SATA adapters and SATA to IDE adapters. Always make sure you get the right one. One converts an IDE harddrive to SATA and is connected directly to the drive itself and the other converts an IDE interface connector to 2 x SATA by plugging into the connector on the motherboard. In either case, you will NOT see the same performance as you would native SATA as PATA, aka EIDE or IDE has a maximum throughput of 33MB/s, 66MB/s, 100MB/s or 133MB/s depending on the exact specification supported.