To check whether a SATA cable is bad, currently I'd run a disk benchmark and look at the SMART attribute "UltraDMD CRC Error Count." However, that attribute seems to be a rolling average and may not increase immediately if you use a bad SATA cable. Can you suggest a better way?
The quickest way to tell whether a SATA cable is bad
hard drivesatasmart
Best Answer
I realize that this is an old question, but as it came up during a search for SATA cables, I thought I would add this. For a home user simply testing them on a working drive works just fine, but if you have quite a few cables, work IT, or take side jobs doing computer work, I highly suggest getting a dedicated SATA cable tester like the one here on Amazon, though I'd go NewEgg myself, better luck with them. Amazon SATA Cable Tester
I run a small repair/setup/teaching shop, and owning a tester for all power supply outputs and one for SATA and USB cables has saved me a ton of time and effort. It is a real pain to manually test 20+ SATA cables or power supplies.