SATA Male to Male Computer Drive Cables & Adapters

A Guide to Purchasing SATA Male-to-Male Drive Cables and Adapters

SATA male-to-male drive products allow you to connect your host bus adapter to your external storage device. These products are used by those who desire external data storage without having to replace their internal hard drives.

SATA stands for serial ATA or serial AT attachment. This is the computer bus interface that connects to mass storage devices. These storage devices can be solid-state drives, optical drives, external hard drives, or mass storage devices. SATA is the predecessor to Parallel ATA. SATA drives are available in different versions that offer different performance speeds. Below is the list of versions and their corresponding speeds. The speed is measured at gigabytes per second (Gbit/s):

• Version 1.0: 1.5Gbit/s
• Version 2.0: 3Gbit/s
• Version 3.0: 6Gbit/s
• Version 3.2: 16Gbit/s

Connectors are either male or female. A male connector has a protrusion on the interface. A female connector has a depression on its interface. This product has a male connector at each end of the cable. Therefore, compatible devices must have a female SATA interface.

The male-to-male drive SATA cable may be available in various colors and lengths, and it may have multiple cables or just one cable between the connectors. The male SATA power interface has 15 pins aligned horizontally at the end of the cable. The male SATA data interface has seven pins aligned horizontally but appears shorter than the power connector. There are also some right-aligned data cables and left-aligned data cables available.

The cable and adapter are designed to connect your computer to an external hard drive or to other external storage device. The main purpose of this product is to allow you to have extra storage for your computer system without having to install or to replace an internal hard drive. Some people who use this product to supplement their internal hard drives include those who work in video production, those who need a backup storage device, gamers, or those who need to quickly expand their data storage.

There are a number of SATA adapters that are compatible with a number of different interfaces or motherboards. Each model of these products will have a male SATA connector on one side. On the other side of the product can be a MOLEX, USB, or another interface. Some versions of this product may include a splitter that will allow you to send the data to two or more different destinations. Additionally, some versions of this product will allow multiple interface options. Check the product listing to see exactly what features are offered for the product.