Sata Cables: Something new I didn't know

Just received some interesting info from my father on SATA cables and what not to do with them.

This all came about because I had a server at home with "tidied" sata cables amongst others and Dads lecture mode went into full effect.

Apparently you should avoid the following:
- right angle bends or sharp bends in the cable (folding is waaay out!)
- looping cables (long ones obviously) into coils
- running cables close to each others for more than an inch or so (so no strapping them together in bundles)

It may seem obviously but apparently the above can cause the interference and results in data loss which, needless to say, you'd want to avoid.

Either way, I've just unbundled a bunch of cables and replaced a couple which I'd pretty much folder up and nylon strapped into a nice tidy bundle and lo' the server lockups I was experiencing have disappeared.

Anyways, thought I'd share as it'd never occurred to me before and might be a useful troubleshooting tip.

I've heard the bundles one before but i coil mine up as do many others and some PC builders so thats a hmmmm one

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Originally Posted by john

I've heard the bundles one before but i coil mine up as do many others and some PC builders so thats a hmmmm one

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Surely the don't-coil thing is for cables carrying AC, to avoid current/heat being produced?

--
David Hicks

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Originally Posted by john

I've heard the bundles one before but i coil mine up as do many others and some PC builders so thats a hmmmm one

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Yeah, that did occur to me but then I suppose there may be some truth to it if you're talking about long cables (and some of these SATA cables do come long). Either way, it's a useful troubleshooting tip. :)

thanks for that. We have had a couple of hdd go doo-lally and i think that could be the reason.

How about chewing them? Is that out? I get bored sometimes.

The no-sharp bends is pretty standard - I use nice regular curves and treat them the same as cat5. I do bundle, but the downside is the connectors (on original SATA at least) are flimsy enough to come loose under slight tension.

Some things can be tidied. Power, audio and screened or balanced data. Long parallel ribbon cables are probably the worst culprits and I have personal experience of spending a year trying to sort out a randomly misbehaving language lab.

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Originally Posted by Joanne

How about chewing them? Is that out? I get bored sometimes.

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Well I wouldn't recommend it when there's power going through them... New hairstyle? :)

nah it was a spare one hanging around... new out the packet. I got told that was costing the school money, but then I informed my NM that we got it with a motherboard so it didn't count...

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right angle bends or sharp bends in the cable (folding is waaay out!)
- looping cables (long ones obviously) into coils
- running cables close to each others for more than an inch or so (so no strapping them together in bundles)

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right angle bends is obvious and looping must be due to electro magnetic fields and general coiley doings, but id have thought you could bundle them for more than an inch or so very surprising

I use the right-angled sata connections usually as i find these easier to handle and save a lot of space when connected to drives as they don't need as much room on the drive its elf. I built a SFF pc and used sata and found that the cable touched the back of something can't remember what it was now (case or CPU) and to get around it i had to bend it right by the connection. I found out about the corner thing and so opted to replace with right-angled cables instead.