SFF-8482

(also known as...)

• SAS 29 pin / Power

SFF-8482 Information

SAS and SATA hard drive connectors look similar but there is one difference: with SAS drives, the data and power connectors are actually one, so you cannot plug in a SATA data connector and SATA power separately. This unified connector is the SFF-8482. It looks like a narrower version of the SFF-8484 connector, except the SFF-8484 supports four channels / lanes, and is used with backplanes or controllers. SFF-8482 is single channel and meant for individual drives. SFF-8482 is also compatible with SATA, so you can attach both SAS and SATA drives.

Most SFF-8482 connectors have two cables attached: one for power, typically the 4-pin molex connector (the old style), and one for data. They will extend the depth of your drive by just over half an inch. The other end of the data connection will be either a SATA-style connector or an SFF-8087 connector. In the latter configuration, the cable is a fanout assembly, with one quad-channel SFF-8087 on one end, and four single-channel SFF-8482 on the other. Some cables have a quad-channel SFF-8484 cable in place of the SFF-8087, but these are rare as SFF-8087 has established itself as the internal multilane SAS connector of choice.

As newer power supplies have fewer and fewer molex connectors, please make sure that you have those available to supply power to your SAS drives. If not, you may need female molex to male SATA power adapters. (Note: these are different than the adapters used to convert molex power supply connectors to SATA hard drives.)

All SFF-8482 cables are wired the same way, so you don't need to worry about directionality.

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