Wire for connecting the hard drive. How to connect a hard drive to a computer? Hard drive program

Good day everyone, my dear friends. Today I want to tell you about how to connect a hard drive via USB to a computer or laptop. Personally, I had this question when I replaced it on my laptop, after which the old “hard” remained restless, although fully functional. Therefore, I hasten to please you. If you have such a device, then you can make a great one out of it mobile storage data.

There is, however, one small condition. These methods are only suitable for more or less modern hard drives with an interface of at least SATA.

Cam Box - This is (as you understand) a certain box (plastic or metal), inside of which there is a special slot for a particular disk. Naturally, it is worth noting that there are boxes for both large HDDs (3.5) and small ones (2.5), which go under laptops.

The HDD is simply inserted into the box, and after assembly it will be no different from the usual one external hard disk. After that, you just need to insert a USB cable into it and connect it to your computer. This way you get double benefits:

• You bring an old device back to life and use it;
• You practically get an external HDD for free

On such media it will be possible to store any backup and archival copies, or use it in everyday life.

All the fun will cost you an average of 300-500 rubles.

Adapter (SATA-USB)

The easiest and least expensive way is to purchase a special SATA-USB adapter. The adapter itself is a cable, at one end of which there is a connector for connecting a disk, and at the other end there is a USB port.

Well, I think you guessed what needs to be done in this case. Yes, it's simple. Connect HDD to the connector, and insert the other end into the USB port of your computer or laptop.

But it’s just worth considering that conventional HDDs (3.5) may not have enough power from one USB cable, so purchase a cable with two connectors and use them simultaneously.

Depending on the company and the quality of the product, such cables will cost you approximately 200-600 rubles.

Dock station

The most expensive, but very effective option is to purchase a docking station. These devices are somewhat reminiscent of old consoles like Dendy or Sega. The similarity is that instead of connectors for cartridges, there are connectors for HDDs. All you have to do is simply insert the hard drive into this station, and then connect it via USB to the computer.

There are such devices different types, and in many cases you will be able to work not only with one disk, but with several at once, even of different form factors (2.5 and 3.5).

The cheapest options with one device will cost you no less than 1000 rubles, or even more. More powerful stations cost 3 and 4 thousand rubles each.

As you can see, there are enough ways to connect a hard drive via USB to a computer, for every taste and color. So you no longer have to leave all your devices unattended.

Well, this is where I end my article. I hope you liked it, so don't forget to subscribe to my blog updates and also share blog articles on in social networks. Good luck to you. Bye bye!

Best regards, Dmitry Kostin

Hello dear visitors. In this lesson I'm on real example I'll show you how to connect to your computer hard disk. I want to warn you right away that this is not difficult and it will not waste much of your time.

Let's get started right away!

First of all, prepare the system unit: turn off the power and disconnect all cables from it so that they do not interfere with us. After this, remove from system unit side cover by unscrewing two screws from the back.

Now we can already see the insides of our computer. note to the lower right system unit. Here are the compartments for connecting hard disks.

Take in hands hard disk and carefully insert it into the free slot. The main thing is that the connectors for connection are turned inside the system unit.

Here the holes in the hard drive and on the slot itself where the drive is connected must also match. We will use these holes for fixation. We take 4 bolts and fasten them on one side and the other.

On at this stage completed installing a hard drive into the system unit. Now you need to connect it to the motherboard. For this purpose in modern computers A SATA-power cable and a SATA-interface cable are used. This is what they look like:

First of all, connect the SATA interface to the hard drive.

Be sure to connect the correct way. If you suddenly feel that the cable does not fit into the connector, then try connecting it on the other side. He'll definitely fit in.

The other side of the cable must be connected to the motherboard. We look for a suitable connector and connect it. Typically, these connectors are located at the bottom of the board and are labeled SATA.

Remained last step – supply power to the hard drive.

We take the SATA power cable and connect it to the hard drive, next to the first connector.

The other side of this cable must be connected to the power supply. Examine the wires coming from the power supply and find a connector for connection.

By the way, if you already have another hard drive is connected to the computer, then most likely the power is already leaving it and of course you can use it so as not to create new wires.

This is how it can hang unnoticeably among the wires:

After connecting hard drive in the system unit we move on to setting it up in the system. Close the system cover and reconnect all the wires. Let's turn on the computer!

If you have new hard disk, then most likely it will not be immediately detected by the system and you need to format it.

Open the Computer section and see if a new hard drive has appeared?

Click on the Computer section right click and select Manage.

ATTENTION! The main thing here is not to mess anything up and not to delete data from the necessary disks!!!

Create a simple volume and format the new hard drive and, if necessary, assign a drive letter to it.

Well, as you can see, in modern computers connect hard drive very simple! It only remains to mention that in addition to the modern SATA interface, there is also IDE, which is used in old drives! It looks like this:

Now let's summarize briefly. So for connecting hard disk to the computer, you need to do the following steps:

1. Install the hard drive in a free slot
2. Connect the SATA interface
3. Connect SATA power
4. Set up a hard drive in Windows

That's all, good luck connecting the hard drive!

The ability to connect additional hard drives will be very useful to you if there is a lack of free disk space on the ones already installed. Connect HDD to personal computer Can:

1. Installed into the system unit using standard SATA connectors on the motherboard.
2. Installed into the system unit using the SAS RAID controller connectors.
3. Using a USB-SATA adapter.

This is interesting! PredecessorSATA was the interfaceATA (another name isIDE). The difference lies in the method of data transmission - serial transmissionSATA, parallelATA. It is generally accepted that serial transfer is faster, however, for the average user the difference is invisible.

SATA

Step 1. Remove the case cover of your system unit.

Step 2. Attach the data cable to the connector on the motherboard.

On a note! The connector number is not important. Definition boot hard disk operation occurs according to the software installed on it.

Step 3. Connect the data cable to the connector on the hard drive.

Step 4. Connect the power cable to the hard drive connector.

Important! When connecting the cable, the computer's power must be turned off. When connecting a cable with voltage applied to it, there is a high risk of damage controller hard disk or controllerSATA motherboard! In the event that your power supply has power connectors only for hard drivesIDE, use a special adapter.

Step 5. Secure the hard drive to the case with screws.

Important! Make sure that the cables do not come into contact with the cooler blades of the system unit.

If you are using a 2.5-inch drive, use special slides to secure the hard drive more tightly inside the system unit.

Connecting the hard drive inside the case to the connectorsSAS

These connectors are backward compatible, that is, SATA can be connected to SAS, but SAS cannot be connected to SATA.

Step 1. Install the hard drive into a special structure (sled) of the appropriate size.

On a note! The designs are designed for certain form factors, that is, inserting a 2.5-inch drive into the controller cage of 3.5-inch hard drives will not work.

Step 2. Insert the slide into the controller basket and push until the slide handle locks in the desired position.

Important! Don't forget to check the cable connectionRAID to the motherboard and change your controller settings.

Connecting a 3.5-inch hard drive using an external power adapter

Step 1. Attach the adapter to the hard drive.

Step 2. Connect the adapter and desired port your computer from via USB-cord.

Step 3. Connect the power cable to the adapter.

Step 4. Apply power to the adapter by switching the toggle switch to the working position.

Step 5. If necessary, install drivers for the connected equipment.

Connecting a 2.5" hard drive using a 3.5" adapter

2.5" drives are commonly used in laptops. The connectors are no different from the connectors for 3.5 drives, but the laptop hard drive is attached to the case using a special basket (sled).

Step 1. Remove the slides or other structures from your hard drive.

Step 2. Follow the instructions for connecting a 3.5 hard drive using an adapter.

Connecting a 2.5-inch hard drive using the appropriate adapter

When using a special adapter for 2.5 hard drives, you do not need to remove the slide. As a rule, such adapters do not have external power and receive voltage from the computer’s USB port.

Step 1. Connect the adapter to the hard drive.

Step 2. Connect both ends of the USB adapter cable to the computer ports.

Important! Two ends of the cable are needed because one of them transmits information, and the other carries power to the adapter.

Video - How to connect a hard drive

Conclusion

We looked at three different ways connecting hard drives with SATA connectors to a personal computer. Each of them requires purchase additional equipment, at least - trains. If you decide to use a SATA drive as an external one (connected via a USB adapter), it is recommended to purchase a reliable protective case for disk. When working with the device, the cover should be removed to avoid overheating. Some parameters of hard drives working with different technologies, are presented in the summary table.

Name	Data transfer rate, Mb/s	Number of devices per port
IDE (ATA)	133,5	2
SATA R.1	150	1
SATA R.2	300	Up to 15
SATA R.3	600	Up to 16
SAS R.150	150	Up to 4
SAS R.300	300	Up to 4
SAS R.600	600	Up to 4

Then you know it takes a lot of time. You need to turn off the computer, remove the side cover, secure and connect the hard drive. And if the hard drive is connected only for a short period of time (for example, to copy files), then you don’t want to do that much work.

Fortunately, this problem can be solved with USB interface A. In this article you will learn how to connect a hard drive via USB.

Method No. 1. SATA-USB adapter.

The simplest and most cheap way through the interface it is a special adapter. This adapter looks like a USB cable with a small box at the end. On the side of this box there is a connector for SATA connections disk.

When choosing a SATA-USB adapter, you need to pay attention to whether you are using extra food from an external adapter. Because if the SATA-USB adapter is powered only via USB, then it will not be able to work with large drives.

Method number 2. Hard drive pocket.

The hard drive pocket is a small case into which you can insert your hard drive. There is a connector inside this case and a USB interface outside. HDD pockets give them some protection, but they are not as compact as SATA-USB adapters. Plus, they cost significantly more.

Other than that, the pockets limit you to the form factor of the hard drive you can attach. In other words, if you have a pocket for 2.5-inch hard drives, then you won’t be able to use it to connect a 3.5-inch drive.

Method number 3. Docking station for hard drives.

Another option is a hard drive docking station. A docking station is a stationary device that is used to connect hard drives to a computer. Docks differ from pockets in that they have an open design. Thanks to this, connecting a hard drive to a docking station is much easier than connecting to a USB pocket.

In addition, docking stations are more versatile; in most cases, they can be used to connect both 2.5 and 3.5 inch hard drives. There are also docking stations for multiple hard drives.

Hello! We have looked at it in detail hard device disk, but I didn’t specifically say anything about interfaces - that is, ways of interaction between the hard drive and other computer devices, or more specifically, ways of interacting (connecting) the hard drive and the computer.

Why didn't you say so? But because this topic is worthy of no less than an entire article. Therefore, today we will analyze in detail the most popular ones on this moment hard drive interfaces. I’ll immediately make a reservation that the article or post (whichever is more convenient for you) this time will have an impressive size, but unfortunately there’s no way to go without it, because if you write briefly, it will turn out to be completely unclear.

Computer hard drive interface concept

First, let's define the concept of "interface". Speaking in simple language(namely, I will express myself to them as much as possible, because the blog is on ordinary people designed for people like you and me), interface - the way devices interact with each other and not only devices. For example, many of you have probably heard about the so-called “friendly” interface of a program. What does it mean? This means that the interaction between a person and a program is easier and does not require the user to great effort, compared to the "not friendly" interface. In our case, the interface is simply a way of interaction between the hard drive and the computer motherboard. It is a set of special lines and a special protocol (a set of data transfer rules). That is, purely physically, it is a cable (cable, wire), on both sides of which there are inputs, and on the hard drive and motherboard there are special ports (places where the cable is connected). Thus, the concept of interface includes the connecting cable and ports located on the devices it connects.

Well, now for the “juice” of today’s article, let’s go!

Types of interaction between hard drives and computer motherboard (types of interfaces)

So, first in line we will have the most “ancient” (80s) of all, it can no longer be found in modern HDDs, this is the IDE interface (aka ATA, PATA).

IDE- translated from English “Integrated Drive Electronics”, which literally means “built-in controller”. It was only later that IDE began to be called an interface for data transfer, since the controller (located in the device, usually in hard drives And optical drives) and the motherboard needed to be connected with something. It (IDE) is also called ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment), it turns out something like “Advanced Connection Technology”. The fact is that ATA - parallel data interface, for which soon (literally immediately after the release of SATA, which will be discussed below) it was renamed PATA (Parallel ATA).

What can I say, although the IDE was very slow ( throughput data transmission channel ranged from 100 to 133 megabytes per second per different versions IDE - and even then purely theoretically, in practice much less), but it allowed you to simultaneously connect two devices to the motherboard at once, using one cable.

Moreover, in the case of connecting two devices at once, the line capacity was divided in half. However, this is far from the only drawback of the IDE. The wire itself, as can be seen from the figure, is quite wide and, when connected, will take up the lion's share free space in the system unit, which will negatively affect the cooling of the entire system as a whole. All in all IDE is already outdated morally and physically, for this reason the IDE connector is no longer found on many modern motherboards, although until recently they were still installed (in the amount of 1 piece) on budget motherboards and on some boards in the mid-price segment.

The next interface, no less popular than the IDE in its time, is SATA (Serial ATA), characteristic feature which is serial data transmission. It is worth noting that at the time of writing this article is the most widespread for use in PCs.

There are 3 main variants (revisions) of SATA, differing from each other in throughput: rev. 1 (SATA I) - 150 Mb/s, rev. 2 (SATA II) - 300 Mb/s, rev. 3 (SATA III) - 600 Mb/s. But this is only in theory. In practice, the writing/reading speed of hard drives usually does not exceed 100-150 MB/s, and the remaining speed is not yet in demand and only affects the speed of interaction between the controller and the HDD cache memory (increases the disk access speed).

Among the innovations we can note - backwards compatible all versions of SATA (a disk with a SATA rev. 2 connector can be connected to a motherboard with a SATA rev. 3 connector, etc.), improved appearance and ease of connecting/disconnecting the cable, increased cable length compared to IDE (1 meter maximum, versus 46 cm on IDE interface), support NCQ functions starting from the first revision. I hasten to please owners of old devices that do not support SATA - they exist adapters from PATA to SATA, this is a real way out of the situation, allowing you to avoid wasting money on buying a new motherboard or a new hard drive.

Also, unlike PATA, SATA interface“hot-swappable” hard drives are provided, which means that when the power of the computer system unit is turned on, you can attach/detach hard drives. True, to implement it you will need to delve a little into BIOS settings and enable AHCI mode.

Next in line - eSATA (External SATA)- was created in 2004, the word "external" indicates that it is used to connect external hard disks. Supports " hot swap" drives. The length of the interface cable is increased compared to SATA - maximum length is now as much as two meters. eSATA is not physically compatible with SATA, but has the same bandwidth.

But eSATA is far from the only way connect external devices to your computer. For example FireWire- serial high-speed interface for connection external devices, including HDD.

Supports hot swapping of hard drives. The throughput is comparable to USB 2.0, and with the advent of USB 3.0 - even loses in speed. However, it still has an advantage - FireWire is able to provide isochronous data transmission, which facilitates its use in digital video, as it allows data to be transmitted in real time. Sure, FireWire is popular, but not as popular as, for example, USB or eSATA. It is used quite rarely to connect hard drives; in most cases, FireWire is used to connect various multimedia devices.

USB (Universal Serial Bus), perhaps the most common interface used to connect external hard drives, flash drives and solid state drives(SSD). As in the previous case, there is support for “hot swap”; the maximum length of the connecting cable is quite large - up to 5 meters in case USB usage 2.0, and up to 3 meters - if USB 3.0 is used. You can probably make the cable longer, but in this case stable work devices will be in question.

Transmission speed USB data 2.0 is about 40 Mb/s, which is generally a low figure. Yes, of course, for ordinary everyday work with files, a channel bandwidth of 40 Mb/s is enough, but as soon as we talk about working with large files, you will inevitably begin to look towards something faster. But it turns out there is a way out, and its name is USB 3.0, the bandwidth of which, compared to its predecessor, has increased 10 times and is about 380 Mb/s, that is, almost the same as SATA II, even a little more.

There are two types of contacts USB cable, these are type "A" and type "B", located at opposite ends of the cable. Type "A" - controller ( motherboard), type "B" - connected device.

USB 3.0 (Type "A") is compatible with USB 2.0 (Type "A"). Types "B" are not compatible with each other, as can be seen from the figure.

Thunderbolt(Light Peak). In 2010, Intel demonstrated the first computer with this interface, and a little later, no less than famous company Apple. Thunderbolt is quite cool (how could it be otherwise, Apple knows what is worth investing in), is it worth talking about its support for such features as: the notorious “hot swap”, simultaneous connection with several devices at once, truly “huge” data transfer speed (20 times faster than USB 2.0).

The maximum cable length is only 3 meters (apparently more is not necessary). However, despite all the listed advantages, Thunderbolt is not yet “massive” and is used mainly in expensive devices.

Go ahead. Next up we have a couple of very similar friends on other interfaces are SAS and SCSI. Their similarity lies in the fact that they are both used primarily in servers where high performance and the shortest possible hard disk access time are required. However, there is also back side medals - all the advantages of these interfaces are compensated by the price of devices that support them. Hard disks, supporting SCSI or SAS are an order of magnitude more expensive.

SCSI(Small Computer System Interface) - a parallel interface for connecting various external devices (not just hard drives).

It was developed and standardized even somewhat earlier than the first SATA version. IN fresh version SCSI has hot-swappable support.

SAS(Serial Attached SCSI), which replaced SCSI, was supposed to solve a number of the latter's shortcomings. And I must say - he succeeded. The fact is that, due to its “parallelism,” SCSI used a common bus, so only one of the devices could work with the controller at a time; SAS does not have this drawback.

In addition, it is backward compatible with SATA, which is undoubtedly a big plus. Unfortunately, the cost of hard drives is SAS interface is close to the cost of SCSI hard drives, but there is no way to get rid of this; you have to pay for speed.

If you're not tired yet, I suggest you consider one more interesting way HDD connections - NAS(Network Attached Storage). Currently network systems data storage (NAS) are very popular. Essentially, this is a separate computer, a kind of mini-server, responsible for storing data. It connects to another computer via network cable and is controlled from another computer through a regular browser. All this is needed in cases where great disk space, which is used by several people at once (in the family, at work). Data from network storage are transmitted to user computers either via a regular cable (Ethernet), or when Wi-Fi assistance. In my opinion, a very convenient thing.

I think that's all for today. I hope you liked the material, I suggest you subscribe to blog updates so as not to miss anything (form in the upper right corner) and we will meet you in the next blog articles.