Took me 6 years to realize I was plugging SATA cables in upside down

I've been building PCs since 2018 and just last month it hit me. I was at a shop in Austin helping a buddy with a cable mess and he pointed out my SATA data cable was inverted. He was like 'dude, the L-shaped notch goes on top' and I felt like an idiot. For 6 years I had been forcing them in backwards, thinking they were just tight connectors. Never had a drive fail on me though, so your mileage may vary. Any other techs have a 'duh' moment that took way too long to catch?

2 comments

2 Comments

sam_harris6816h ago

Man I feel attacked right now because I did the exact same thing for way longer than I want to admit. Turns out those SATA cables have a little lock tab that clips in when you put them right side up, I just thought they were supposed to be loose.

faith_smith15h ago

My buddy Kevin spent a full weekend building his PC last year and kept jiggling the SATA cables thinking they were just cheap. He texted me a photo of the lock tab after he found it by accident and I swear @sam_harris68 he wrote "I am a fool" in all caps under it.