Hard Drive 32GB Clip Pin Setting

I bought two new hard drives for my AT7 mobo, Samsung SP1614N 160 GB drives, and
in the small installation ticket instructions that came with the hard drives it
gives a "General Pin Setting" and a "32 GB Clip Pin Setting". Since it did not
explain the what the latter meant, and since the hard drives only came with a
single jumper on each hard drive and the "32 GB Clip Pin Setting" requires two,
and since Samsung surely knows this hard drive is greater than 32 GB in
capacity, I assumed that I should use the "General Pin Setting" ansd set each
hard drive to Cable Select with it. The drives came up off of my raid controller
correctly as Master and Slave drives so I did not think about this again.

Now I have looked at the one-page installation manual online and the
documentation implies, although again it is not clear, that I must use the "32
GB Clip Pin Setting" quote 'in case drive capacity is 32 GB or more' unquote.
Does this mean I should add a second jumper as shown for cable select ? Does
anybody know what "32 GB Clip Pin Setting" actually means ? Why would Samsung
send a drive that is clearly greater than 32 GB ( aren't they all nowadays )
with only a single jumper on the drive ? Why does everything seems to be working
properly even though I did not add this second jumper when I installed the drive
? I have some spare jumpers, from other products, so I am pretty sure I can add
on one of these but I would rather not if I do not need to do it.

 

The correct way to jumper these drives for your system is as Cable Select,
but *not* with the 32GB clip option enabled.

Sure. It's a compatibility mode for motherboards and controllers built in
the "old days" that would only support hard disks up to 32GB in size.

Because that's how the vast majority of owners would use them. It is however
possible that an extra jumper would be supplied with the packaging on a
retail product.

Because your system doesn't have a 32GB limit.

You don't need to. Leave things as they are.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com

 

Many thanks for the information !