Silverstone SST-CP01 SATA II Drive Cable
Review by: Steve
Edited by: Ji4m
Provided by: Silverstone
Price: $12 Canadian

Introduction:
Today is the first of our upcoming reviews that will be focusing on some of the products in the accessories/fan lines from Silverstone. In this review I'll be taking at look at the SST-CP01 Serial ATA II cable.

In The Box:
(1) SATA II Drive Cable

Specs:
Length: 500mm
Cable Thickness: 3.6mm x2
Color: Black

Features:

• Has support for both Serial ATA II and is backwards compatible with Serial ATA I
• 3gb/sec transfer rates on SATA II drives
• Offers superior Electromagnetic Interference Suppression
• Higher signal quality than standard SATA II/I cables
• Black coloured, will look good in a windowed case

Installation:
Installation of the SST-CP01 drive cable is as easy as it gets. Simply unplug both ends of any old cable you may be using, then plug this one in. For those unfamiliar with SATA cables, they are keyed at one end so it's almost impossible to do anything wrong during the installation. The only minor problem I noticed was that the additional size of this cable didn't allowed me to put the side of my computer case back on without having to force it, which would damage the drive. For those with a similar case design, Silverstone makes another version of this cable which is angled 90 degrees on the one end for cases where the drive cage faces the side door.

Testing:
There aren't many tests one can do on a simple hard drive cable. What I'll be doing in this review is running a variety of transfer tests using both my stock cable that came with the motherboard (I was unable to find a brand name on it) and using the SST-CP01 cable. I'll be looking at the overall speeds which will show if this cable does indeed perform better than the stock cable or whether it just adds better looks and better signal quality.

Testing System:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Socket 939)
Motherboard: Biostar NF4UL-A9
Memory: 512mb Dual-Channel OCZ Premiere Series
HDD: Western Digital 160gb SATA II (WD1600JS)
Video: XFX GeForce 6600GT PCI Express
Power Supply: Silverstone ST60F 600W
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

To do the testing I used HD Tach and ran both quick and full tests, saved my results, and compared them. Upon comparing both tests with the old and new cable, the lines ended up exactly on top of each other. As is expected, not a whole lot can really be done to a hard drive's cable to actually speed up the drive, so I wasn't expecting to see much from it in that particular test.

However, the overall quality of the Silverstone cable is far superior to that of any stock SATA II cables you may get with your motherboard or drive. This cable offers superior EMI suppression and ultra high signal quality to any connected devices. Sending a "cleaner" signal to my hard drive and eliminating any possible electric interference would personally make me shell out a few extra bucks to install one of these cables on all my drives.

Conclusion:
Overall the SST-CP01 is a great little investment for anyone who wants to improve the signal quality of their SATA II drive or just eliminate the stock SATA II cable with something a little nicer to look at.

Pros:
SATA II and SATA I compatibility
Looks better than the standard SATA cables for those with a windowed case
Superior EMI Suppression to eliminate interference
Offers higher signal quality than stock SATA cables

Cons:
You'll have to buy the other version if you're drive cage faces the case's door. Be careful to watch out for this!

Rating: 10/10

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