HDD Warning/advice/tip For Everyone

[K404]

DO NOT cable-tie your SATA cables together for neatness.

I was having shocking performance, backed up by HDTach, with the most impressive zig-zag graphs lines you could ever imagine while my data cables were cable-tied together for neatness.

I removed the cable tie and moved the cables apart and VOILA...right back to the performance I expect.

Didnt take screenshots of the graphs, I was too upset at the time

K

Reason: capacitance between the cables, leading to interference and crosstalk. The casing of these cables obviously sucks

 

[maverik-sg1]

Unless of course you have suitably shielded cable I guess??

Cheers for the heads up for normal SATA cable users (like those found included with your motherbaord).

Mav

 

[sacha35]

if you do not have shielded cables you can allways run some small cable that has been striped of insulation in between the sata cables and ground one end to the case, this way it will draw and voltage from the sata cables to ground.

 

[Master_G]

Hmm, well that is very interesting, i will examine this when i put my rig back together (slightly on hold now as my PSU went pop ), i hope ive got some cables that can stand being together for neatness sake.

How far apart did you have to move them apart? I was just thinking that given that SATA headers are usually close together, as are the drives then it might be quite difficult.

G

 

[Mindless-Moron]

Thanks, i was planning to tie my shockingly cheap ones together, cos it really is a mess down there, anyone know any brandnames that make shielded sata cables?

 

[Firelord]

No problems here using latch secure Akasa SATA300 cable here cable tied togther. They are correctly shielded

 

[nick25]

Thanks for the heads up Kenny - didn't know this.

 

[Faaip De Oiad]

Would be interesting to see some statistics of this.

i.e. distance between cables correlated against performance.