SATA cables for HDDs + Media Drives

moosish

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May 15, 2008
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Hello all,

I am building a new computer and am buying both my HDDs (Seagate 7200 rpm, 500gb, 32 mb cache x 2) and both of my Disk drives (Pioneer) OEM, so I will not be receiving any additional cables. My question is: How many SATA cables and of which type (I vs. II etc) will I need to setup my HDDs in a raid-0 and simply setup my Disk drives? Thanks for your time and help!
 
You don't need special cables for RAID.

Your motherboard should come with at least two SATA cables - some come with 4 or even 6. What kind of MB will you get?

If you have a huge case and need extra long cables you can buy them from newegg. It's best to get the kind of cable with a latch at the end.

I had a Pioneer burner once and I wasn't happy with it. Anyway, at least get two different burners so you get different software with them.

 
+1 @aevm, except that OEM burners may not include any software. Get at least one Retail burner so you get the software you need to use it. That includes a decoder, without which you will be unable to watch movies.
 
I was lucky, my LG burner was OEM but with software anyway (Nero Express 7, Power DVD 7) :) I guess they were trying to compensate for adding rip-lock. (LG has a feature in firmware that makes it very slow at ripping DVDs.)
Whatever burner you buy, read a review or two first to know what you get...
 


The latch will look like a small flat metal spring clip. If you see a little piece of metal on the connector, you are looking at the latch. Unfortunately, all the SATA DVD drives I have seen use the cheaper latchless cables.