S-ATA Power - The 15-Pin Drive Connector

15-pin power connector for SATA drives. Three voltages (3.3 V, 5 V, 12 V), three pins per voltage rail, hot-swap by design.

The S-ATA power connector is the modern successor to the legacy Molex 4-pin. It uses a flat 15-pin wafer connector providing three supply voltages (3.3 V, 5 V, 12 V) on three pins each (P1-P3 for 3.3 V, P4-P6 for 5 V, P13-P15 for 12 V). The triple-pin assignment serves three purposes: lower contact resistance, redundancy, and the staggered length of pins enables hot-swap: pre-charge pins make contact first to avoid inrush spikes when a drive is hot-plugged into an active backplane.

Technical Specifications

Standard	Serial ATA International Organization
Pins	15 (3 per supply rail + 3 per ground)
Voltages	3.3 V, 5 V, 12 V
Connector type	Wafer / flat
Hot-swap	Yes (staggered pin lengths)
Pin pitch	1.27 mm
Typical current	up to 4.5 A per rail

Matching products in the shop

SATA power cables
Molex-to-SATA adapters
PSU SATA cables

Frequently Asked Questions

Is 3.3 V actually used by SATA drives?

Most consumer SSDs and HDDs ignore 3.3 V (they use 5 V and 12 V internally). However, the SATA standard reserves 3.3 V on pin 3 for the PWDIS (Power Disable) signal in newer enterprise drives - which can cause boot failures with old PSUs that energise pin 3 unconditionally.

Can I use Molex-to-SATA adapters safely?

For low-power drives (laptop SSDs, single HDDs) yes. For 3.5 inch enterprise drives or arrays, prefer native SATA connectors - cheap adapters have caused fires under sustained load.

How is hot-swap implemented?

Pins are at three different lengths: ground first, pre-charge second, signal/power third. So when you slide a drive into an active hot-swap backplane, ground engages first, then a current-limited pre-charge prevents inrush, then the full power and data engage.

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