About Serial ATA Drives
Your computer supports up to four serial ATA hard drives and two serial ATA optical drives. Serial ATA drives provide the following benefits by transferring data
using serial technology and flexible cables that are thinner and longer than IDE cables:
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Improved cable routing facilitates more efficient airflow inside the chassis.
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Compact cable connectors save space on the system board and on the hard drive, allowing for more efficient utilization of space inside the chassis.
General Drive Installation Guidelines
SATA hard drives should be connected to connectors labeled "HDD" on the system board. Non-hard drive SATA devices should be attached to the connectors
labeled SATA, with the exception of a 5th SATA hard drive installed in a 5.25-inch drive bay, which much be connected to the SATA0 connector. IDE optical
drives should be connected to the connectors labeled "IDE."
When connecting a SATA cable, hold the cable by the connector at each end and press firmly into the connector. When disconnecting a SATA cable, hold the
cable by the connector at each end and pull until the connector detaches.
When you connect two IDE devices to a single IDE data cable and configure the devices for the cable select setting, the device attached to the last connector
on the data cable is primary or the boot device, and the device attached to the middle connector on the data cable is the secondary device. See the drive
documentation in your upgrade kit for information on configuring devices for the cable select setting.
To connect an IDE data cable, align the tab on one connector with the notch on the other. When disconnecting an IDE data cable, grasp the colored pull-tab
and pull until the connector detaches.
Hard Drive
Removing a Hard Drive
NOTE:
The 5.25-inch Media Card Reader/floppy drive carrier is not interchangeable with the hard drive carrier.
1 optical drive bays (4)
2 floppy drive/media card reader
3 hard-drive bays (4)
1 SATA data cable
2 SATA data connector (on the system board)
3 SATA drive
