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I have a Toshiba MQ01ABD032 250gig laptop hard drive. I was wondering if I could hook it up to my desktop pc. Will it be fried from the 12volt line on the sata power connector?

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    Possible duplicate of Can a laptop hard-drive be used in a desktop machine?
    – Caturday Saint
    Commented Mar 31, 2017 at 16:18
  • Marked dupe question does not deal with power, which is the specific point of this Q.
    – music2myear
    Commented Mar 31, 2017 at 16:20
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    @music2myear Only marked as duplicate, based on the title of the question. Other considerations, such as power, aren't necessary to delve into because of the standardization of SATA. No aggression meant, however.
    – Caturday Saint
    Commented Mar 31, 2017 at 16:37
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    No aggression perceived. As the linked Q only mentioned SATA in passing it could be easy to miss. I noted this and thought this question was just different enough to be not actually duplicate.
    – music2myear
    Commented Mar 31, 2017 at 16:39
  • @music2myear, the other asks "can you do it?" Power isn't specifically addressed, but if it was an issue, wouldn't that be mentioned in the answers as a problem in trying to do it? This question only asks whether power is an issue, so it seems covered by the other. If it asked "why" it is or isn't an issue, that would seem like more of a different question. Good answer, BTW.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Mar 31, 2017 at 18:44

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No, your drive will not fry on the desktop SATA power connector.

The SATA standard is designed to handle this gracefully. The 15-pin SATA power connector contains 3.3V, 5V, and 12V connectors, and the device will connect to the appropriate pins depending on its needs.

Pins

  1. 3.3V Power
  2. 3.3V Power
  3. Enter/Exit Power Disable mode
  4. Ground
  5. Ground
  6. Ground
  7. 5V Power, Pre-Charge
  8. 5V Power
  9. 5V Power
  10. Ground
  11. Staggered spinup/activity
  12. Ground
  13. 12V Power, Pre-Charge
  14. 12V Power
  15. 12V Power

The 2.5" drive, only needing 5V, will only connect to the necessary pins.

For more reading, Wikipedia's article could be a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA#Power_connectors

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  • Based on good advice from @JamieHanrahan this answer has been substantially modified. The binary answer did not change, but the explanation of why and the background has been corrected.
    – music2myear
    Commented Mar 31, 2017 at 18:31

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