How To Connect External Hard Drive With Sata Cable

Micro center tech support shows you how to connect a hard drive to your computer externally through a usb cable hard drive adapter review.

How to connect external hard drive with sata cable.

Pay attention to the external power supply. Then use an available sata power cable coming from your system s power supply and connect the cable to your crucial ssd. If the power cable does not fit easily check to make sure that it is not upside down. Both ends are flat and thin with one often made at a 90 degree angle for better cable management.

Sata cables are long 7 pin cables. Some adapters are powered via usb and don t match 3 5 hard drives used in nas and desktop computers. Confirm the interface of hard drive ide sata or pata. If you have a spare expansion slot you can use an esata bracket or an esata card.

You ll need an esata cable as well. The port the connecting cable the power supply and the external hard drive ehd can all suffer from physical and or electrical faults. Connect the dock to your pc just like you would connect an external drive. One end plugs into a port on the motherboard usually labeled sata and the other such as the angled end into the back of a storage device like a sata hard drive.

Some external hard drives draw their power from the usb. Look for an external hard drive enclosure internal hard drive to usb adapter that is suitable for your old drive. Drop the hard drive into the slot and turn the dock on. Sometimes both adapter and esata cable are bundled with the drive.

Like its usb counterpart an external esata drive will have two connections a power source and an esata cable. To install the ssd as a secondary drive not your primary or boot drive use a sata cable and attach one end of the cable to the sata connector on your motherboard. Connect the sata cables to the hard drive. The esata cable will plug into an esata port.

Connect the insulated power cable with the wider tip into the larger connection port situated on the left rear of the hdd. Attach the other end of the sata cable to your crucial ssd. Attach the enclosure to your desktop or laptop by using the usb cable. Please note that some usb to sata adapters have a pair of sata interfaces thus to connect two sata drives you need only one adapter.