> You'll note that the newer hard drives have surface mount connectors for
the
> power and signal cables.  It has been my experience that these are durbale
and
> reliable despite only being supported by the board, but they *look*
fragile, and
> I'm always afraid that the insertion or removal may cause enough stress to
> fracture something.  So from a consumer standpoint, I know I would
probably lean
> towards a product that looks and feels sturdy rather than one that does
not.

That's a good point as well, how often the connector is stressed is a key
issue.
I only deal with external connectors exposed to customers, so I overlooked
the case like a drive cable, where it gets conencted only a few times in
it's life.