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l008com · Aug 21, 2010, 12:43 AM

I'm wondering if anyone knows where I can get a pair of surface mount cables, one for SATA data and one for SATA power. What do I mean by surface mount? I mean the type of cable where I can cut a small hole in the objects, and attach this to the inside, giving said device a (in this case) SATA port. This is the USB version of exactly what I'm looking for:

Amazon.com: Cables to Go 28068 USB 2.0 A Female to B Male Panel Mount Cable (2 Feet, Black): Electronics

If I could get one of those for SATA data and one for SATA power, I'd be a happy guy. I'm turning a fw800 hard drive enclosure into a flexible on-the-fly drive adapter. By my fear is after a few years of use (i fix Macs for a living, my current IDE enclosure-turned-adapter is on it's last leg), the power and data connectors on the enclosure's board might break right off. But if I could put some solid external ports on the outside of this little case, I'll be golden. This little magic box would last forever! But I can't find any cables like this anywhere.

ALSO fyi for those that are interested: It was an aluminum and steel enclosure for a 3.5" hard drive. I cut off about 2/3 of the internal chassis, and will soon do the same for the external case. I drilled new holes for the end cap and riveted it to the new end of the internal chassis. The result is a box just big enough for the firewire sata bridge board. No empty space going to waste. It's a HD enclosure without the space for the drive. And it's VERY fast, being firewire to SATA. Rivet guns are a MUST for true case mod'ers.

mduell · 11:05 AM

This seems like a flaky hack to reinvent one of those hard drive docks.

You can get the data cable by deconstructing one of the SATA brackets.

You can get SATA power extension cables, but they lack the surface mount wings.

l008com · Aug 22, 2010, 12:19 AM

Not sure why you think it's flaky but whatever.... that SATA bracket is perfect for the data cable, now I just need to find surface mount sata power and I'll be golden.

Dork. · Aug 22, 2010, 07:33 AM

Sounds like what you really want is this:

Geeks.com: Media Player USB 2.0 SATA HDD Dock MP002

l008com · Aug 22, 2010, 02:05 PM

Yes I want the firewire 800 version of that... which I'm building.

mduell · Aug 22, 2010, 02:43 PM

I'm not saying you can't build your own, but for every day professional use I'll take the reliability and appearances of something not hacked together.

Unitek's Docking Station for $60 or Newertech Voyager Q for $90 both have FW800 (and eSATA in the Voyager for truly high speed transfers).

l008com · Aug 22, 2010, 02:58 PM

And look how big and bulkie they are! How is that supposed to fit in my work bag? I don't care how it looks. And my current box will be every bit as reliable as those monster boxes. PLUS those stations are SATA only. And since the connectors are way in there, using adapters to hook up an IDE drive will be extremely difficult.

l008com · Sep 3, 2010, 07:55 PM

Soooooo I was just thinking, and came up with an obvious solution. Since I have to do some custom wires anyway, I'll just get another USB one, and use USB for power. 4pins = 4pins. I'll just have to remember never to plug a real USB device into the power USB port, otherwise it will likely kill it. I just have to check and make sure that the gauge inside the USB wires is thick enough to not melt with all the drive power running through it.

l008com · Sep 3, 2010, 09:30 PM

I just cut open a USB cable and it doesn't look good. Those wires are awfully thin.

tooki · Sep 6, 2010, 03:55 PM

(Pedantic side note: when you say "surface mount", you really mean "panel mount", which is exactly how the first cable you linked to is described. In electronics, surface-mounted means something completely different from panel-mounted.)

Why use a USB port for power, when you could just use some other kind of connector? Mouser.com is your friend.

FWIW, I use one of those universal drive adapter doohickies (I happen to have the NewerTech one from OWC) that does 2.5" and 3.5" ATA and SATA to USB 2. Works brilliantly for tech work.

l008com · Oct 6, 2010, 04:56 AM

So I found plenty of those SATA data "panel mount" pci brackets. But I can't seem to find one where the internal sata cable has a 90°, 'L' style connector. anyone know where I could get one of those? I've been googling but I've come up empty.

l008com · Nov 7, 2010, 04:11 PM

*bump*

Back to this project...
Still looking for a very short SATA panel mount cable, where the 'board' connector is at 90°. What's the inside of a sata cable look like? Are they easy to make your own like ethernet? Just crimp an end on?

mduell · Nov 7, 2010, 08:23 PM

I doubt it, since SATA is 1Ghz+.