Chapter 2 : Hardware Installation
Hardware Installation
Looking inside the chassis, you’ll find several 3.5 inch bays
designed specifically for hard drive installation. Remove the
hard drive from its packaging and install the drive into a 3.5
inch bay with the SATA and power connectors facing outwards.
Secure the drive using one of the four screws included with the
drive, or use the chassis’ drive locking mechanism. Again, we
recommend that you check your chassis installation guide.
Attaching the power and data cables to each of the drives is relatively simple; today’s modern
hard drives and DVD / Blu-ray drives use standard SATA power cables which are quite simple
to attach. Your power supply should have several SATA power cables which you can use. Take
care to make the cabling as tidy as possible, as this will offer better air flow (see Builders Tip 3
below). Both hard drives and DVD drives will use regular SATA data cables that connect
directly to the motherboard.
Most motherboards will have several SATA ports, often
featuring both SATA 2.0 (3 gb/s) and SATA 3.0 (6 gb/s) ports.
Modern hard drives that use a standard 7200rpm spindle will
not require a faster SATA 3.0 port. Today’s SSD drives will
benefit from the higher bandwidth offered by SATA 3.0
however. Consult your motherboard user manual to find out
more about the SATA ports available on your motherboard.
Video here
PC Builders Tip 3
When connecting the data and power cables within your PC, it’s important to remember
that air-flow within the chassis is crucial to keeping components such as the CPU, graphics
card and drives cool and safe from over-heating. Untidy power and data cables can tend
to disrupt air-flow within the chassis, so it’s always a good idea to try and keep the cabling
as neat as possible. One useful tip is to wind the SATA data cables around pen or pencil,
creating a spiral shape that will aid
minimize waste cable and help keep
things tidy.
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How to Build Your Own PC