I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop

ss wrote

I currently use an old hard drive as an external,
I bought a conversion kit off ebay and all works fine.

I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.

I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop

The virgin box drive is a sata. Just get a conversion kit for those.

I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop


Ebay item 123188037792 99 pence inc free postage from China.
--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On 13/07/2018 21:45, ss wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop


I assume that adapter is a universal USB to IDE/SATA

Your old drive is IDE

Your Virgin drive is SATA

The kit should have a SATA data lead and a SATA power lead
and an adapter to convert from a IDE power connector to a SATA power
connector.

Looking at your picture the connector on top of the virgin drive looks
correct. One lead from that will fit into the top of the large block
with the USB lead. The other cable should fit to the power outlet from
the power supply.

Although not the same adapter the following Youtube video may give some idea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGdbRI-WPcY

or _some_ of the following
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGbrDoRWChk

Your PC may not see a disk formatted in a Virgin box. A lot of PVRs are
formatted as Ext3/Ext4. You may have to install a utility on the PC

https://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-w...-from-windows/

If formatting fails try the "HP USB disk formatting tool"
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/dow...e-format-tool/

https://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/d...rd-party-tools

By the way, also useful for reformatting SD cards that have previously
been formatted for cameras.

However expect some formatting of large disks to take VERY MANY HOURS
perhaps all of overnight!!!! Even smaller sd cards can take hours.


--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

ss wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop

Hard drive dock ?

On Friday, 13 July 2018 21:45:46 UTC+1, ss wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop

Once you've got your SATA-USB adaptor, you'll need to do 2 things.
1. Delete the partitions on the disc & make a new partition
2. Format it. If you use windows, use FAT or NTFS. For linux, FAT or Ext4.

Make sure your data is backed up first, wiping the wrong disc is not impossible.


NT

On 14/07/2018 07:46, wrote:
On Friday, 13 July 2018 21:45:46 UTC+1, ss wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop

Once you've got your SATA-USB adaptor, you'll need to do 2 things.
1. Delete the partitions on the disc & make a new partition
2. Format it. If you use windows, use FAT or NTFS. For linux, FAT or Ext4.

Make sure your data is backed up first, wiping the wrong disc is not impossible.


NT

Ok thanks all, I think I have got the connections sussed out now. The
spare connections from the initial conversion kit connect to the
`virgin` hard drive, I just wasnt sure what went where as it was
different to my current external.
Hopefully if it is coded to the box I can get that sorted.

On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop


Ebay item 123188037792 99 pence inc free postage from China.


Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384
since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602
but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power, unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA power
connector.

Theo

On 14/07/18 11:53, Theo wrote:
GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384
since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602
but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power, unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA power
connector.

Theo

I dunno why he doesnt just mount te damned thing inside his PC and be
done with it.

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable with
some USB stuff

..



--
There is nothing a fleet of dispatchable nuclear power plants cannot do
that cannot be done worse and more expensively and with higher carbon
emissions and more adverse environmental impact by adding intermittent
renewable energy.

On 14/07/2018 13:21, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 14/07/18 11:53, Theo wrote:
GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792Â* 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384

since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602

but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power,
unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA
power
connector.

Theo

I dunno why he doesnt just mount te damned thing inside his PC and be
done with it.

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable with
some USB stuff


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and hoping
to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate 3.5, Virgin
one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am not
quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly different to
my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop


Ebay item 123188037792 99 pence inc free postage from China.


Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

Yes, I realised about 10 min after posting, I should have published a
retraction, I am naughty.

Makes you wonder why the 3.25 SATA drives still need +12v & +5v


--

Graham.
%Profound_observation%

On 14/07/18 13:59, newshound wrote:
On 14/07/2018 13:21, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 14/07/18 11:53, Theo wrote:
GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792Â* 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384

since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602

but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power,
unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA
power
connector.

Theo

I dunno why he doesnt just mount te damned thing inside his PC and be
done with it.

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable
with some USB stuff


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Well I dont have any FATS that can get scrambled ...BUT thats not true
if that drive happens to be connected at the time

Not sure if ransomware works on NAS either...

--
There is nothing a fleet of dispatchable nuclear power plants cannot do
that cannot be done worse and more expensively and with higher carbon
emissions and more adverse environmental impact by adding intermittent
renewable energy.

On Saturday, 14 July 2018 14:50:38 UTC+1, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 14/07/18 13:59, newshound wrote:
On 14/07/2018 13:21, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 14/07/18 11:53, Theo wrote:
GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792Â* 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384

since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602

but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power,
unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA
power
connector.

Theo

I dunno why he doesnt just mount te damned thing inside his PC and be
done with it.

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable
with some USB stuff


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Well I dont have any FATS that can get scrambled ...BUT thats not true
if that drive happens to be connected at the time

Not sure if ransomware works on NAS either...

All the main file systems contain at least one FAT (file allocation table).

Leaving a hdd connected inside the pc is an obvious vulnerability to malware, hardware failures & user error.


NT

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable with
some USB stuff


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a few
times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely a back up
should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.
This `new` one either goes to the skip or I try and use it as a back-up
for the back-up. If I cant get it going then I can do without as most
stuff is duplicated on the current external.
I lost a lot of stuff a few years back when my PC failed, prevention
better than a cure as they say.

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 14/07/18 13:59, newshound wrote:
On 14/07/2018 13:21, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 14/07/18 11:53, Theo wrote:
GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792Â* 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap,
isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384

since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602

but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power,
unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA
power
connector.

Theo

I dunno why he doesnt just mount te damned thing inside his PC and be
done with it.

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to
spend my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable
with some USB stuff


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that
it saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Well I dont have any FATS that can get scrambled ...BUT thats not true
if that drive happens to be connected at the time

Not sure if ransomware works on NAS either...


Of course it does..
recent ransomware encrypts the files as they are written so they are
unreadable even if they are stored on a NAS.

Its why you need backups from one NAS to another where the machine with
the ransomware on can't access the second NAS.

Then you can roll back to before the file was encrypted.

On 14/07/2018 15:35, ss wrote:
On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life

External drivees are available at very low prices. If your network is
too slow to move data round on it. A Gigabit network is comparable with
some USB stuff


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a few
times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely a back up
should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

20GB? My backup drive is 3TB! The home server has 8TB in raid 6 - large
chunks are replaceable, but it'd take some time.

Nearly 14,000 photos taken over 18 years take 53.4GB.

I've not even looked at the size of the videos of our wedding, honeymoon
and the kids over the years.

SteveW

Steve Walker posted
On 14/07/2018 15:35, ss wrote:
Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the
*one* argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is
that it saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all
your FATs.
I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a few
times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely a back up
should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

20GB? My backup drive is 3TB! The home server has 8TB in raid 6 - large
chunks are replaceable, but it'd take some time.

Nearly 14,000 photos taken over 18 years take 53.4GB.

I've not even looked at the size of the videos of our wedding,
honeymoon and the kids over the years.

Different people have different backup requirements. 20GB does seem
absurdly small these days (even I have a 500GB backup drive), but
perhaps he doesn't take many photos.

People here and on the parallel thread "OT _ Back up Advice - PC" also
talk about generational backups, incremental backups, protecting against
a hardware failure while doing the backup, etc. Not everybody needs to
be so sophisticated. An offline backup arrangement that will allow you
to recover most files after a primary disk crash or ransomware attack is
likely to be good enough for ninety per cent of non-business users. Most
people don't even have that in place IME.

--
Jack

On 15/07/2018 09:38, Handsome Jack wrote:
Different people have different backup requirements. 20GB does seem
absurdly small these days (even I have a 500GB backup drive), but
perhaps he doesn't take many photos.

People here and on the parallel thread "OT _ Back up Advice - PC" also
talk about generational backups, incremental backups, protecting against
a hardware failure while doing the backup, etc. Not everybody needs to
be so sophisticated. An offline backup arrangement that will allow you
to recover most files after a primary disk crash or ransomware attack is
likely to be good enough for ninety per cent of non-business users. Most
people don't even have that in place IME.

I must admit the 20GB is getting near capacity. I am quite brutal with
pictures and only ever keep the better ones. I did a couple of years
back go through them and found loads of similar and badly composed ones,
when on hols I probably take around 100 but only keep maybe 20 or so.
I have a couple of spreadsheets that are important to me but useless for
anyone else but I keep 3 copies stored elsewhere.

On 14/07/2018 09:42, ss wrote:
Ok thanks all, I think I have got the connections sussed out now. The
spare connections from the initial conversion kit connect to the
`virgin` hard drive, I just wasnt sure what went where as it was
different to my current external.
Hopefully if it is coded to the box I can get that sorted.

Hard drive wasnt coded to the box and all working fine, so thats me got
a back-up 500gb external.

On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:35:18 +0100, ss wrote:

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Sorry but that's at least twice you've made this misleading statement
about ransomware scrambling FATs. It's not the FS metadata that gets
scrambled, it's the data stored by targeted file types that gets
encrypted with a 1024 bit (or larger) encryption key regardless of the FS
type.

For example, all that's needed for a NAS disk volume's contents to be
vulnerable to such ransomware, regardless of the FS used by the NAS box,
is that it be mapped read/write to a drive letter on an infected MS
windows client machine.


I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a few
times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely a back up
should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

Whilst a 20GB drive is laughably small by today's standards (what with
the sweet spot price point now around the 6TB mark), only connecting it
up to perform backup/restore operations a few times a year is an
effective way to minimise the risk of its contents getting encrypted by
ransomware. Note the use of the phrase, "minimise the risk". However,
assuming reasonable vigilance, it's an effective strategy (a vigilant
user would be extremely unlucky to be hit by a ransomware attack just
when they'd randomly attached their backup drive for another session but
sometimes, "**** (just) Happens"(tm F.Gump)).

--
Johnny B Good

On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 12:08:07 +0100, ss wrote:

====snip====


I must admit the 20GB is getting near capacity. I am quite brutal with
pictures and only ever keep the better ones. I did a couple of years
back go through them and found loads of similar and badly composed ones,
when on hols I probably take around 100 but only keep maybe 20 or so.

Are you still using film? I'm assuming your 'hols' last more than just
three or four days and are in places of more scenic interest than your
home territory.

I can take 100 or more shots just on the trip to shore from the cruise
ship in ports of call where the ship has had to lay off at anchor and
provide a tender service (with maybe another 100 on the return trip from
shore).

Unless the excursion ashore is particularly lacking in scenic interest,
I typically clock up a thousand or so stills and maybe an hour or so's
movie footage to boot on each day's outing when on my 'hols'. Even day
trips to local places of interest can produce a few hundred photos,
including quite often some movie footage.

You didn't happen to be involved in the recycling of all those
expensively made Dr Who episode VTs by any chance? :-)

--
Johnny B Good

On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 14:18:24 +0100, Graham. wrote:

====snip====


Makes you wonder why the 3.25 SATA drives still need +12v & +5v

Not 3.25, it's 3.5 (inch). :-)

It doesn't make me wonder why. It's quite obvious if you give it any
thought and remember that the larger internal desktop HDDs all use the
power of a 12v BLDC motor to spin their platters at 5400, 7200, 10200 and
even 15000rpm (though the advent of SSD technology has rendered those
last two speed options obsolete now). The +5v (along with the +12v) are
legacy requirements.

Even though every SATA interfaced SSD drive I've seen have all been 2.5
inch drives and (just like their larger 3.5 inch cousins) are endowed
with the +3.3v option, none to my knowledge actually utilise it as an
alternative to the +5v line. At the very least, all SATA SSDs will run
just fine off the +5v (and ground return) lines alone. There's no need to
provide the +3.3v as anyone who has ever used a 4 pin Molex to SATA power
adapter should be only too aware.

If any of those power rails are eventually to become obsoleted, it's
more likely to be the +5 and +3,3 volt rails, That "Legacy +12v line"
will most likely become the 'defacto' standard for distributing DC power
to everything in PCs and IT kit in general simply because of the ease by
which the actual chip voltages required can be generated by commodity on-
board dc-dc switching regulator chips.

--
Johnny B Good

On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 14:56:51 +1000, FMurtz wrote:

ss wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and
hoping to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate
3.5, Virgin one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am
not quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly
different to my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop

Hard drive dock ?

Is the right answer! At least as far as pressing that unused SATA disk
drive shown on the RHS of that image.

More accurately, a SATA docking station, preferably one with eSATA and
USB3 interface options. Rather conveniently, a SATA docking station will
handle laptop sized drives equally as well as the full size 3.5 inch
desktop drives.

A SATA docking station or two makes a very cost effective data backup
system since you can use a collection of 'bare' drives rather than a
collection of 'bare' drives each fitted into their own individually
purchased external USB/eSATA housings (or a bunch of overpriced
'readymade' external drives). It's also an obvious way to give your
undersized retirees from your NAS box a second lease of life as archival
storage backup drives.

--
Johnny B Good

On 15/07/2018 21:03, Johnny B Good wrote:
Are you still using film? I'm assuming your 'hols' last more than just
three or four days and are in places of more scenic interest than your
home territory.

No I bought my 1st digital from Kodak when mistakenly advertised at £100
instead of £300 so couldnt resist the bargain, I think it was 2002.

Problem nowadays is we go for 2 x 2week hols each year and the most
scenic thing my wife does is shopping plus she hates me taking her picture.

I used to own a place abroad and had thousands of pictures but when I
started going through them there was duplicates from one year to the
next so deleted probably 60% of them.

Current camera I got oct 2017 and have taken just over three thousand
pictures but probably only retained a couple of hundred.

I do have a suitcase full of film snapshots that I ought to convert to
digital and save on my external HD.

On 15/07/2018 21:48, Johnny B Good wrote:

If any of those power rails are eventually to become obsoleted, it's
more likely to be the +5 and +3,3 volt rails, That "Legacy +12v line"
will most likely become the 'defacto' standard for distributing DC power
to everything in PCs and IT kit in general simply because of the ease by
which the actual chip voltages required can be generated by commodity on-
board dc-dc switching regulator chips.

The voltages required by digital chips will be lower and so a 3.3V power
supply will be more than adequate for all future semiconductors and
solid state storage devices. Today it's common for the core of many
large semiconductors to be running at 1V (or lower) and the interfaces
at 1.8V. The 3.3V is kept for interconnects for legacy purposes.

As technology moves on the required power supply voltages will be lower.


--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On Monday, 16 July 2018 06:13:22 UTC+1, alan_m wrote:
On 15/07/2018 21:48, Johnny B Good wrote:

If any of those power rails are eventually to become obsoleted, it's
more likely to be the +5 and +3,3 volt rails, That "Legacy +12v line"
will most likely become the 'defacto' standard for distributing DC power
to everything in PCs and IT kit in general simply because of the ease by
which the actual chip voltages required can be generated by commodity on-
board dc-dc switching regulator chips.

The voltages required by digital chips will be lower and so a 3.3V power
supply will be more than adequate for all future semiconductors and
solid state storage devices. Today it's common for the core of many
large semiconductors to be running at 1V (or lower) and the interfaces
at 1.8V. The 3.3V is kept for interconnects for legacy purposes.

As technology moves on the required power supply voltages will be lower.

True, but higher psu voltage rails have some big plusses: they move more power per given cable & connector ampacity, and are less vulnerable to resistance, both fixed & unintended.


NT

Johnny B Good wrote:
If any of those power rails are eventually to become obsoleted, it's
more likely to be the +5 and +3,3 volt rails, That "Legacy +12v line"
will most likely become the 'defacto' standard for distributing DC power
to everything in PCs and IT kit in general simply because of the ease by
which the actual chip voltages required can be generated by commodity on-
board dc-dc switching regulator chips.

This is already the case. Many servers are 12V only, or only have a small
amount of current on 5V rails. Graphics power supplies are also 12V only -
they have 3.3V from the PCIe connector but only at limited current.

However the countervailing force is USB, which encourages 5V usage.
It remains to be seen whether USB C will usher in common use of higher
voltage USB (it'll go up to 20V).

I think we'll see 12V for bulk power, and USB Power Delivery up to 60W (12V
@ 5A), with 100W PD (20V @ 5A) reserved for more specialised
chargers/docking stations. 5V will persist for lower power applications (eg
USB lamps, power banks, etc)

Theo

On 15/07/18 20:27, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:35:18 +0100, ss wrote:

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to spend
my life


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the *one*
argument for having a backup drive not permanently connected is that it
saves you from nasty ransomeware that quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Sorry but that's at least twice you've made this misleading statement
about ransomware scrambling FATs. It's not the FS metadata that gets
scrambled, it's the data stored by targeted file types that gets
encrypted with a 1024 bit (or larger) encryption key regardless of the FS
type.

For example, all that's needed for a NAS disk volume's contents to be
vulnerable to such ransomware, regardless of the FS used by the NAS box,
is that it be mapped read/write to a drive letter on an infected MS
windows client machine.


I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a few
times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely a back up
should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

Whilst a 20GB drive is laughably small by today's standards (what with
the sweet spot price point now around the 6TB mark), only connecting it
up to perform backup/restore operations a few times a year is an
effective way to minimise the risk of its contents getting encrypted by
ransomware. Note the use of the phrase, "minimise the risk". However,
assuming reasonable vigilance, it's an effective strategy (a vigilant
user would be extremely unlucky to be hit by a ransomware attack just
when they'd randomly attached their backup drive for another session but
sometimes, "**** (just) Happens"(tm F.Gump)).


Interestingly I am safe from ransom ware purely by an accident of design
- apart from running Desktop Linux anyway.

And this may be of interest to windows users.

All my important data is on a server. That runs Linux.. It happens to
export that data via NFS, because I have no windows or MAC clients, but
it could export it via Samba and so make it available to Windows and MAC
users.

It backs that data up on a timed script to a second disk that is not
visible either to NFS or SAMBA

Unless corruption happened and I didn't notice BEFORE the backup, I
always have a 'last nights snapshot' available.

Even then if I thought a scrambled disk was a possibility I would create
a file called do.not.touch.me and test to see if it had changed and not
do a backup unless I found out why.

Having a Linux based twin disk server instead of NAS is handy

I use a really old PC. With a LOT of disks


--
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels

On 15/07/18 22:10, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 14:56:51 +1000, FMurtz wrote:

ss wrote:
I currently use an old hard drive as an external, I bought a conversion
kit off ebay and all works fine.
I have now taken the hard drive from an unused virgin top box and
hoping to use that also as an external hard drive. Both are Seagate
3.5, Virgin one 500GB.
I am assuming I would connect it to my PC and reformat. However I am
not quite sure of the connections to make as they are slightly
different to my current external one, as per image.
Any help or advice would be good.

https://imgur.com/a/BZmyhop

Hard drive dock ?

Is the right answer! At least as far as pressing that unused SATA disk
drive shown on the RHS of that image.


Ive got a hard drive dock with an ethernet interface
Its called a 'server'.



--
No Apple devices were knowingly used in the preparation of this post.

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 06:13:18 +0100, alan_m wrote:

On 15/07/2018 21:48, Johnny B Good wrote:

If any of those power rails are eventually to become obsoleted, it's
more likely to be the +5 and +3,3 volt rails, That "Legacy +12v line"
will most likely become the 'defacto' standard for distributing DC
power to everything in PCs and IT kit in general simply because of the
ease by which the actual chip voltages required can be generated by
commodity on-
board dc-dc switching regulator chips.

The voltages required by digital chips will be lower and so a 3.3V power
supply will be more than adequate for all future semiconductors and
solid state storage devices. Today it's common for the core of many
large semiconductors to be running at 1V (or lower) and the interfaces
at 1.8V. The 3.3V is kept for interconnects for legacy purposes.

As technology moves on the required power supply voltages will be lower.

Well, you've just stated the case for standardising on a single 12v rail
voltage. The power demands of various devices can all be neatly serviced
by on board dc-dc converters whatever their actual voltage requirements.

It's already a long established technique for providing the dozens of
amps at circa one volt or so to modern CPU cores as well as the 1.8v for
dimms (and Gawd knows what else that happens to require a 'non-standard'
voltage).

So little of what's on board a modern MoBo these days uses the 5 volt
rail directly that it might as well be derived off the 12v rail and any
serious power demand on the 3.3v rail would be far better served by an on-
board 12v to 3.3v switching converter anyway.

As for the negative rail voltages, they were mainly used as low current
biassing voltages. In fact the -5v rail disappeared from the ATX spec a
decade or so back since virtually nothing used it even back then and any
modern adapters that still needed a -5v rail simply derived it from the
-12v rail using a low power analogue voltage regulator chip or a simple
zenner diode and resistor. Anything that needs non-trivial power levels
on a negative voltage rail can also be served by dc-dc switching voltage
inverting regulators powered from the +12v rail.

The +12v rail has always enjoyed a looser voltage tolerance spec (+/-10%
as opposed to the +/- 5% tolerance of the 5 and 3.3 volt rails). This
feature lends itself to the use of a 12v SLA as a simple battery backup
for a 12v only system (10.8 to 13.2v) where a slight increase of the
upper limit to a float charging voltage of 13.5v is unlikely to trouble
the only kit that uses it directly, the BLDC spindle motors in desktop
HDDs.

The simplified +12v only PC power supplies will be both cheaper to
implement and easier to design for the higher efficiencies required to
qualify for the Bronze 80 and higher certification standards of
efficiency.

Once a roadmap to a single rail PSU powered PC has been published and a
transition period agreed, we'll start seeing adapters advertised as being
"12 volt ready!", possibly even being described as "12 and 15 volt
ready!" to indicate that they can be used in the current multi-rail
powered PCs and transplantable into a modern 12v only system PC.

There's every good reason to eliminate the multiplicity of voltage rails
between the PSU and the MoBo so I wouldn't be at all surprised to see
such a transition wherein modern 12v only MoBos could still provide by
default the original +5 and +3.3 volts in their PCI and PCIe expansion
slots with a signalling system whereby a modern "12 volt only" adapter
could negotiate for additional 12v power via these otherwise unused
connections in the interface. This would allow otherwise expensive to
replace adapters with normal power requirements to continue being used.

Whether we'll actually see such a development in PC power standards
remains, to my knowledge at least, an unknown. It just seems the most
obvious next step for the manufacturers to take in improving reliability
and reduction of overall production costs whilst meeting an ever
increasing demand to reduce the energy consumption of desktop PCs.

--
Johnny B Good

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
news
On 14/07/18 11:53, Theo wrote:
GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384
since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602
but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power,
unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA
power
connector.

Theo

I dunno why he doesnt just mount te damned thing inside his PC and be done
with it.

because laptops don't have any way of doing this

tim

On 17/07/18 09:41, tim... wrote:


"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
news
On 14/07/18 11:53, Theo wrote:
GB wrote:
On 13/07/2018 22:56, Graham. wrote:
Ebay item 123188037792Â* 99 pence inc free postage from China.

Nooooooooooooooo! That's for 2.5" drives. But, it's bloody cheap, isn't
it. Might get one to keep in stock.

It's probably better to invest another quid in a USB 3.0 version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-t...r/132670918384

since USB 2.0 is likely to be a bottleneck on most modern drives.

For 3.5" drives you can get adaptors like this:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-T...R/232780523602

but you're probably better off with a case that also handles power,
unless
you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare SATA
power
connector.

Theo

I dunno why he doesnt just mount te damned thing inside his PC and be
done with it.

because laptops don't have any way of doing this

I was responding to:

"unless you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare
SATA power connector."

Thats not a description of a laptop



--
"The great thing about Glasgow is that if there's a nuclear attack it'll
look exactly the same afterwards."

Billy Connolly

"pamela" wrote in message
...
On 12:59 16 Jul 2018, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 15/07/18 20:27, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:35:18 +0100, ss wrote:

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive
more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to
spend my life


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the
*one* argument for having a backup drive not permanently
connected is that it saves you from nasty ransomeware that
quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Sorry but that's at least twice you've made this misleading
statement
about ransomware scrambling FATs. It's not the FS metadata that
gets scrambled, it's the data stored by targeted file types that
gets encrypted with a 1024 bit (or larger) encryption key
regardless of the FS type.

For example, all that's needed for a NAS disk volume's contents
to be
vulnerable to such ransomware, regardless of the FS used by the
NAS box, is that it be mapped read/write to a drive letter on an
infected MS windows client machine.


I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a
few times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely
a back up should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

Whilst a 20GB drive is laughably small by today's standards
(what with
the sweet spot price point now around the 6TB mark), only
connecting it up to perform backup/restore operations a few times
a year is an effective way to minimise the risk of its contents
getting encrypted by ransomware. Note the use of the phrase,
"minimise the risk". However, assuming reasonable vigilance, it's
an effective strategy (a vigilant user would be extremely unlucky
to be hit by a ransomware attack just when they'd randomly
attached their backup drive for another session but sometimes,
"**** (just) Happens"(tm F.Gump)).


Interestingly I am safe from ransom ware purely by an accident of
design - apart from running Desktop Linux anyway.

And this may be of interest to windows users.

All my important data is on a server. That runs Linux.. It happens
to export that data via NFS, because I have no windows or MAC
clients, but it could export it via Samba and so make it available
to Windows and MAC users.

It backs that data up on a timed script to a second disk that is
not visible either to NFS or SAMBA

Unless corruption happened and I didn't notice BEFORE the backup,
I always have a 'last nights snapshot' available.

Even then if I thought a scrambled disk was a possibility I would
create a file called do.not.touch.me and test to see if it had
changed and not do a backup unless I found out why.

Having a Linux based twin disk server instead of NAS is handy

I use a really old PC. With a LOT of disks

Is that PC so old that it uses PATA with Molex power connector?

Would such a really old PC have difficulty powering many disks?

Nope, the power supply is just another swappable power supply.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 17/07/18 09:41, tim... wrote:
because laptops don't have any way of doing this

I was responding to:

"unless you're willing to fish around the inside of your PC for a spare
SATA power connector."

Thats not a description of a laptop

The OP has not indicated whether they have a laptop or not.

Obviously the unpowered USB adaptor is not an option for a 3.5" drive if
they have a laptop - either a full, externally powered, USB case, or a
powered HDD dock would be needed.

Even in a desktop PC, I'd suggest it's cleaner to do that than having to
open up the case to tap into the PSU wiring. And some desktops won't have
a spare connector of the right type anyway.

Theo

On 17/07/2018 10:21, pamela wrote:
On 12:59 16 Jul 2018, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 15/07/18 20:27, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:35:18 +0100, ss wrote:

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive
more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to
spend my life


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the
*one* argument for having a backup drive not permanently
connected is that it saves you from nasty ransomeware that
quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Sorry but that's at least twice you've made this misleading
statement
about ransomware scrambling FATs. It's not the FS metadata that
gets scrambled, it's the data stored by targeted file types that
gets encrypted with a 1024 bit (or larger) encryption key
regardless of the FS type.

For example, all that's needed for a NAS disk volume's contents
to be
vulnerable to such ransomware, regardless of the FS used by the
NAS box, is that it be mapped read/write to a drive letter on an
infected MS windows client machine.


I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a
few times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely
a back up should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

Whilst a 20GB drive is laughably small by today's standards
(what with
the sweet spot price point now around the 6TB mark), only
connecting it up to perform backup/restore operations a few times
a year is an effective way to minimise the risk of its contents
getting encrypted by ransomware. Note the use of the phrase,
"minimise the risk". However, assuming reasonable vigilance, it's
an effective strategy (a vigilant user would be extremely unlucky
to be hit by a ransomware attack just when they'd randomly
attached their backup drive for another session but sometimes,
"**** (just) Happens"(tm F.Gump)).


Interestingly I am safe from ransom ware purely by an accident of
design - apart from running Desktop Linux anyway.

And this may be of interest to windows users.

All my important data is on a server. That runs Linux.. It happens
to export that data via NFS, because I have no windows or MAC
clients, but it could export it via Samba and so make it available
to Windows and MAC users.

It backs that data up on a timed script to a second disk that is
not visible either to NFS or SAMBA

Unless corruption happened and I didn't notice BEFORE the backup,
I always have a 'last nights snapshot' available.

Even then if I thought a scrambled disk was a possibility I would
create a file called do.not.touch.me and test to see if it had
changed and not do a backup unless I found out why.

Having a Linux based twin disk server instead of NAS is handy

I use a really old PC. With a LOT of disks

Is that PC so old that it uses PATA with Molex power connector?

Would such a really old PC have difficulty powering many disks?


My PC still has Molex power connectors but the power supply is
450 watts which is fine for my needs. Circa 2006, though with a
new M/B in 2011.

At least molex and 40 pin parallel connections engaged permanently
and the latter used gold-flashed pins so they never cause problems
unlike the nasty sata connections used currently.

"Andrew" wrote in message
news
On 17/07/2018 10:21, pamela wrote:
On 12:59 16 Jul 2018, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 15/07/18 20:27, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:35:18 +0100, ss wrote:

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive
more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to
spend my life


Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the
*one* argument for having a backup drive not permanently
connected is that it saves you from nasty ransomeware that
quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Sorry but that's at least twice you've made this misleading
statement
about ransomware scrambling FATs. It's not the FS metadata that
gets scrambled, it's the data stored by targeted file types that
gets encrypted with a 1024 bit (or larger) encryption key
regardless of the FS type.

For example, all that's needed for a NAS disk volume's contents
to be
vulnerable to such ransomware, regardless of the FS used by the
NAS box, is that it be mapped read/write to a drive letter on an
infected MS windows client machine.


I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a
few times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely
a back up should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

Whilst a 20GB drive is laughably small by today's standards
(what with
the sweet spot price point now around the 6TB mark), only
connecting it up to perform backup/restore operations a few times
a year is an effective way to minimise the risk of its contents
getting encrypted by ransomware. Note the use of the phrase,
"minimise the risk". However, assuming reasonable vigilance, it's
an effective strategy (a vigilant user would be extremely unlucky
to be hit by a ransomware attack just when they'd randomly
attached their backup drive for another session but sometimes,
"**** (just) Happens"(tm F.Gump)).


Interestingly I am safe from ransom ware purely by an accident of
design - apart from running Desktop Linux anyway.

And this may be of interest to windows users.

All my important data is on a server. That runs Linux.. It happens
to export that data via NFS, because I have no windows or MAC
clients, but it could export it via Samba and so make it available
to Windows and MAC users.

It backs that data up on a timed script to a second disk that is
not visible either to NFS or SAMBA

Unless corruption happened and I didn't notice BEFORE the backup,
I always have a 'last nights snapshot' available.

Even then if I thought a scrambled disk was a possibility I would
create a file called do.not.touch.me and test to see if it had
changed and not do a backup unless I found out why.

Having a Linux based twin disk server instead of NAS is handy

I use a really old PC. With a LOT of disks

Is that PC so old that it uses PATA with Molex power connector?

Would such a really old PC have difficulty powering many disks?


My PC still has Molex power connectors but the power supply is
450 watts which is fine for my needs. Circa 2006, though with a
new M/B in 2011.

At least molex and 40 pin parallel connections engaged permanently
and the latter used gold-flashed pins so they never cause problems
unlike the nasty sata connections used currently.

Never had any problem with any of my 'nasty' sata connections.

On 17/07/2018 15:23, Andrew wrote:
On 17/07/2018 10:21, pamela wrote:
On 12:59Â* 16 Jul 2018, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 15/07/18 20:27, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:35:18 +0100, ss wrote:

On 14/07/2018 14:50, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Â*Â* Franly investng time and effort to read an onbsolete drive
Â*Â* more than
once, to get the data off, is not in my list of cool hip ways to
spend my life

Â*Â*
Agree with you about faffing around with obsolete stuff, but the
*one* argument for having a backup drive not permanently
connected is that it saves you from nasty ransomeware that
quietly scrambles all your FATs.

Â*Â* Sorry but that's at least twice you've made this misleading
Â*Â* statement
about ransomware scrambling FATs. It's not the FS metadata that
gets scrambled, it's the data stored by targeted file types that
gets encrypted with a 1024 bit (or larger) encryption key
regardless of the FS type.

Â*Â* For example, all that's needed for a NAS disk volume's contents
Â*Â* to be
vulnerable to such ransomware, regardless of the FS used by the
NAS box, is that it be mapped read/write to a drive letter on an
infected MS windows client machine.


I already have a 20GB external hard drive which I just update a
few times a year, mostly pictures and a few excel stuff. Purely
a back up should my PC fail, it is not permanently connected.

Â*Â* Whilst a 20GB drive is laughably small by today's standards
Â*Â* (what with
the sweet spot price point now around the 6TB mark), only
connecting it up to perform backup/restore operations a few times
a year is an effective way to minimise the risk of its contents
getting encrypted by ransomware. Note the use of the phrase,
"minimise the risk". However, assuming reasonable vigilance, it's
an effective strategy (a vigilant user would be extremely unlucky
to be hit by a ransomware attack just when they'd randomly
attached their backup drive for another session but sometimes,
"**** (just) Happens"(tm F.Gump)).


Interestingly I am safe from ransom ware purely by an accident of
design - apart from running Desktop Linux anyway.

And this may be of interest to windows users.

All my important data is on a server. That runs Linux.. It happens
to export that data via NFS, because I have no windows or MAC
clients, but it could export it via Samba and so make it available
to Windows and MAC users.

It backs that data up on a timed script to a second disk that is
not visible either to NFS or SAMBA

Unless corruption happened and I didn't notice BEFORE the backup,
I always have a 'last nights snapshot' available.

Even then if I thought a scrambled disk was a possibility I would
create a file called do.not.touch.me and test to see if it had
changed and not do a backup unless I found out why.

Having a Linux based twin disk server instead of NAS is handy

I use a really old PC. With a LOT of disks

Is that PC so old that it uses PATA with Molex power connector?

Would such a really old PC have difficulty powering many disks?


My PC still has Molex power connectors but the power supply is
450 watts which is fine for my needs. Circa 2006, though with a
new M/B in 2011.

The brand new 650W supply I bought a couple of weeks ago has numerous
Molex connectors - still needed for additional case fans, a somewhat
elderly DVD writer and a totally unnecessary case light.

SteveW

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 23:19:19 +0100, Steve Walker wrote:

The brand new 650W supply I bought a couple of weeks ago has numerous
Molex connectors - still needed for additional case fans, a somewhat
elderly DVD writer and a totally unnecessary case light.

I buy the modular ones. You can choose ahich cables to use, and plug
those in. SATA-style, Molex, a mixture...

--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 17/07/2018 23:42, Bob Eager wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 23:19:19 +0100, Steve Walker wrote:

The brand new 650W supply I bought a couple of weeks ago has numerous
Molex connectors - still needed for additional case fans, a somewhat
elderly DVD writer and a totally unnecessary case light.

I buy the modular ones. You can choose ahich cables to use, and plug
those in. SATA-style, Molex, a mixture...

We have a number of PCs and all our data is held on a proper server, so
I am not overly worried about reliability. This PSU cost £16 - a lot
cheaper than a similar modular one.

SteveW