The right Hard Drive?

[ejewels52]

Hello-
I just purchased an extra western digital hard drive at Best Buy for my mac pro. It is model number WD2500KSRTL. Upon opening the package, I noticed that there are extra inputs in the back and it also came with wires to use. In comparing it to the native one my mac came with..it doesn't have the extra connections in the back. Anyways, I installed the drive and it seems to work fine after I partitioned it. There are open connections that didn't even get used or plugged in. Is this okay? Bad for the computer? What is going on here? Thanks in advance...

 

[kwood]

Hello-
I just purchased an extra western digital hard drive at Best Buy for my mac pro. It is model number WD2500KSRTL. Upon opening the package, I noticed that there are extra inputs in the back and it also came with wires to use. In comparing it to the native one my mac came with..it doesn't have the extra connections in the back. Anyways, I installed the drive and it seems to work fine after I partitioned it. There are open connections that didn't even get used or plugged in. Is this okay? Bad for the computer? What is going on here? Thanks in advance...

It is probably just the connector cables that go to the Mother Board. Thats is, you would use them if you were using the drive inside of a regular PC.

As far as the other connectors go in the back they shouldn't be a problem. I have SATA drives in my Windows box and I only have the data and power cable plugged in. I don't know what the other connectors are for, but the machine runs flawlessly so it wont damage your machine.

 

[ejewels52]

Yes, thats it...the instructions it came with said it was for motherboard connections. I was just concerned if the open connections is bad for static or anything? Hope its okay...I mean, I'm sure lots of people buy retail hard drives and put them in their pros...anyone?

 

[kwood]

Yes, thats it...the instructions it came with said it was for motherboard connections. I was just concerned if the open connections is bad for static or anything? Hope its okay...I mean, I'm sure lots of people buy retail hard drives and put them in their pros...anyone?

I've never done this, but what if you remove the default drive and look at it? Does it have the same exposed connectors? Every SATA I have seen have these other connectors.

 

[kwood]

I think this may be your answer...


http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2079-001042.pdf

 

[ejewels52]

Thanks Kwood-
Yes, I did look at the one my pro came with. It doesn't have the extra connectors, but this new retail one does. I read those instructions it came with that you posted...but I still don't see an answer...I guess its okay then?

 

[kwood]

Thanks Kwood-
Yes, I did look at the one my pro came with. It doesn't have the extra connectors, but this new retail one does. I read those instructions it came with that you posted...but I still don't see an answer...I guess its okay then?

It shouldn't cause any problems. I have 2 in my Windows machine (One Maxtor [SATA1] and a Seagate [SATA2], both have exposed connectors and there is no problems with performance and they ave never short circuited. The only thing I can possibly think they would be for is a hardware RAID, but I am not sure.