Power Supplies - Upgrading and Repairing PCs - page 1118

Ifyouareaddingdrivesandneedadditionalpowerconnectors,Ysplittercablesaswellas
peripheral-to-floppypowerconnectoradaptersareavailablefrommanyelectronicssupply
houses (including RadioShack). These cables can adapt a single power connector to ser-
vice two drives or enable you to convert the large peripheral power connector to a smaller
floppy drive power connector. If you are using several Y-adapters, be sure that your total
power supply output is capable ofsupplying the additional power and that youdon't draw
more power than a single connector can handle.
Serial ATA Power Connectors
If you want to add Serial ATA drives to an existing system, you will need a newer power
supply that includes a Serial ATA (SATA) power connector. The SATA power connector
isaspecial15-pinconnectorfedbyonlyfivewires,meaningthreepinsareconnecteddir-
ectly to each wire. The overall width is about the same as the peripheral power connector,
but the SATA connector is significantly thinner. All the most recent power supply form
factor specifications include SATA power connectors as mandatory for systems support-
ing SATA drives. Figure 18.31 shows a SATA power connector.
Figure 18.31 A SATA power connector.
In the SATA power connector, each wire is connected to three terminal pins, and the wire
numbering is not in sync with the terminal numbering, which can be confusing.
If your power supply does not feature SATA power connectors, you can use an adapter
to convert a standard peripheral power connector to a SATA power connector (see Figure
18.32 ) . However, such adapters do not include the +3.3V power. Fortunately, though, this
is not a problem for most applications because most drives do not require +3.3V and use
only +12V and +5V instead.
Figure 18.32 A peripheral-to-SATA power adapter.