A technician is servicing an older desktop that contains a parallel ATA (PATA) hard disk drive. The drive's label shows it needs a four-pin power plug that provides +12 V and +5 V. Which power connector from the power-supply unit should the technician attach to this hard disk drive?
The correct connector is the 4-pin Molex (LP4) peripheral power connector, which supplies +12 V (yellow wire) and +5 V (red wire) on pins 1 and 4 and is standard for PATA hard drives and other legacy peripherals. A SATA power connector is a flat 15-pin plug used on newer SATA drives; the Berg connector is a smaller 4-pin plug intended for floppy drives; the 6-pin PCIe auxiliary power plug is designed for graphics cards, not storage devices.
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What is a 4-pin Molex (LP4) peripheral connector used for?
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How does the Molex connector differ from the 15-pin SATA power connector?
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Why is the 4-pin Berg connector unsuitable for powering a PATA hard disk drive?