The cable’s EMI shielding can be easily seen through the translucent plastic tubing, and have the same feel to thick Monster speaker wire. The thin locking mechanism on the connector head is made of thin aluminum and have two raised points to grab onto the drive socket. To release the cable you much press the lever down much like releasing the clip on a network cable. The locking mechanism also provides a clue to the orientation of the plug, which takes the guesswork out of connecting the cables.
The cables are very easy to work with. At first it may seem like the cables are so long that you won’t know where to fit the entire length. The cables are more flexible than stanrdard OEM SATA cables, which tend to be a little stiff and show every little kink and bend in the cable. The extra length of this cable really allows you to route the cable through every nook and cranny in your case and still reach the destination. I routed my cables under the hard drives, through a hole, on the backside of the case, and finally emerging near the top of the motherboard right where the SATA ports are. Shorter cables forced me to block the view of other components or tighten the cable to the point where it looked like the connector might snap. 39” length is plenty of room for even a large server case.
Testing
The cables look nice and all, but we need to make sure that the performance isn’t degraded, either through the legnth of the cable or build quality. Tests were performed on the excellent Western Digital 250GB SATA2 drive with 16MB cache. HDTach was run several times to confirm consistent readings. Below are the specifications of our test system:
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
- Asus A8N SLI Deluxe nForce4 motherboard
- Western Digital 250GB KS HDD (16MB cache SATA2)
- Windows XP SP2
- HDTach 2.61
HDTach shows that the Mad Dog SATA cables perform about the same as a regular OEM SATA cable. Maximum read speed is 66MB/sec for both cables, and minimum read speed checks in at 53MB/second. There is no performance degradation even though the Mad Dog cable was tested against a much shorter OEM cable.. The HDTach test was run several times, and each result varied slightly, but was within 1% tolerance. The main objective here was to determine that the cable build is as good as an OEM cable and does not result in performance loss.
Conclusion
Those that see the value of Monster audio cables and other ultra-quality gear will be drawn to these SATA drive cables. They perform as well as a standard cable, but look much better and are easier to work with. It it wasn’t for the steep price, this cable would easily reach a 5 out of 5. If price is no object, then these are the best SATA cables you can buy.
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