[Answered] Do Motherboards come with SATA Cables?

Do Motherboards come with SATA Cables

Do Motherboards come with SATA Cables? This is the question that almost every motherboard buyer or custom PC builder has asked himself. Every motherboard is different, and Every motherboard manufacturer is different. It might depend on the motherboard model and manufacturer’s policy to how many SATA cables are to be provided with the motherboard, if any. People who buy rebuild PCs are usually not to be concerned with such questions, but enthusiasts who want to build or upgrade their system themselves would want to know, “Do motherboards come with SATA cables?”. The straightforward answer is ‘It depends. In this article, we’ll explore the answer furthermore.

Contents

Why do you need SATA cable?

Do motherboards come with SATA cables?
SATA Logo.

Before asking, “Do motherboards come with SATA cables?”. Let us understand why do you need SATA cables in the first place? SATA is short for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment. It is a successor of the ATA interface. It is a computer BUS interface that is used for mass storage devices such as hard-disk drives or SATA SSD drives. It was also used for CD-DVD drives, but they depreciated over time. The more SATA ports on motherboards, the more storage disks it can support natively. The term SATA cables here refer to the cables that connect your hard drive to the motherboard to transfer data.

There are SATA power cables also. This 15pin connector cable connects the PSU to the hard drive. The data power cable can carry 12 volts or 5 volts of voltage as per the device requirement. The SATA power cables are mostly part of the PSU and are only one-sided. On the other hand, the SATA data cables have a similar 7 pin s port connector that fits into its slot. Both of the SATA cables are needed to be connected to the device in order for it to work as intended.

Do motherboards come with SATA cables?

The typical answer is YES. Motherboards come with SATA cables, but they are limited to a fixed quantity. In most cases, you are to get two SATA cables with your motherboard irrespective of the brand of the board. But the amount may vary depending on the model number and manufacturer of your motherboard. These days, most of the modern motherboards have at least four to six SATA ports. If you wish to use all the SATA ports of your motherboard, you might have to buy additional SATA cables to fill all of your empty SATA ports.

L-shaped SATA data cable. (Wikipedia)
L-shaped SATA data cable. (Wikipedia)

Why Do motherboards come with SATA cables?

After getting to know “do, motherboards come with SATA cables?” let’s understand why do motherboards come with SATA cables. The answer to why is the wide usage of SATA port. Most of the Hard-drivers on the market are SATA drives, the old CD-DVD writers that are now depreciated also support the SATA port. Even the modern high-speed, high-capacity SSDs also come in SATA port options. That is why looking at the popularity and compatibility of the SATA ports. It is evident that the motherboard manufacturers provide a couple of SATA cables with the board.

How many SATA cables does a motherboard come with?

The most common answer is TWO. Despite the brand, most of the motherboards come with at least two SATA cables. But the quantity of the SATA cables might also depend on the particular model or variant of the motherboard you bought. Still, typically 2 is the answer to the question “Do motherboards come with SATA cables?”

Do motherboards come with SATA cables? Clarification!

On a funny note, One thing is to be absolutely clear with this question. The motherboard does not come with a set of SATA cables, but a set of SATA cables comes with a motherboard. Words are not to be played with here understand the phrase “Do motherboards come with SATA cables?”. You get SATA cables with it when you buy a motherboard, not the other way around. You do not get a motherboard when you buy SATA cables.

Do Gigabytes motherboards come with SATA cables

Gigabyte is a popular motherboard manufacturer and makes boards for different use cases. The Gaming motherboards of gigabytes are pretty popular among consumers. Gigabytes are one of the first choices for premium-grade consumer motherboards. The answer to the question “Do gigabytes motherboards come with SATA cables” in the case of gigabytes is YES. Gigabytes motherboard do come with at least two SATA cables.

FAQs on Do Motherboards come with SATA cables

Which are faster, M.2 SSDs or SATA SSDs?

M.2 SSDs are obviously faster than SATA SSDs.

Are there variants of SATA cables?

Yes, The SATA data cables have three variants, SATA I, SATA II, SATA III. These provide faster data bandwidth, respectively.

Do SSDs or HDDs come with SATA Cables?

Typically they do not.

Conclusion

SATA Cables are a necessary part of a computer build. Most of the motherboards do come with at least two SATA cables nowadays. Two SATA cables should be sufficient for most of the common users. But suppose you are an enthusiast who wants to create a computer with high storage capacity, or you wish to set up a storage server with RAID configuration. In that case, you might need more SATA cables to connect additional disks drives. SATA cables can be independently bought cheaply from a local computer vendor or can also be purchased online. It all depends on the use case.

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