What is the purpose of this 4-pin interface on SATA HDDs and why doesn't it exist on SSDs?

I have 4 HDDs here with me, from 3 different manufacturers, and all of them have the
following 4-pin extra interface beside the SATA connector:

Looking on internet, I can see that it exists on all HDD devices, but not on SSDs:

On old IDE devices there was a similar interface used to select operational mode(master/slave),
but on SATA it doesn't makes sense any more.... So, could someone tell me what this interface
is intended to do and why it doesn't exist on SSDs? It is used on any practical situation.

Those are jumper settings, like the IDE drives you mention, but for SATA specific options
depending on the drive maker. For example, on this Western Digital support page for mobile
drives, it shows two options:

 Reduced Power Spinup - RPS: Used by external hard disks to reduce spinup
current and allows it to work over USB interface.
 Spread Spectrum Clocking - SSC: Used when your SATA controller doesn't support
SSC by default.
Also, it doesn't exist on SSDs because there is no spin up or spread spectrum related to solid-
state devices.

@Adrian Cox mentions in the comments below, a different pin function for Seagate drives.

RPS: Used by external hard disks to reduce spin up current and allows it to work over USB
interface.

I am going to punch you! Why didn't you post this a couple of months ago, before I rigged a
SATA drive with a DIY-external-drive setup (eBay cable and power adapter)?

Maybe then it would not have (literally) burned out the PCB. :-( +1 for both answering the
question and enlightening me on about RPS.

Presumably its lower performance than the full power spin up. I wouldn't be surprised if the
drive ran at a slower RPM as well.

USB ports are designed to work with 500mA max, if you start an HDD with 1A it will burn.

You should probably emphasis that the jumpers are manufacturer specific. For instance,
Seagate have the same four pin connector, but with a different function:
knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/193991en

Seagate moved their page from @AdrianCox answer. wayback has it though
web.archive.org/web/20160608230214/http://knowledge.seagate.com/…

Jumper settings for Seagate SATA hard drives.

Serial ATA interface disk drives are designed for easy installation. It is not necessary to set any
jumpers, terminators, or other settings on this drive for proper operation. The jumper block
adjacent to the SATA interface connector on SATA 150MB/s drives is for factory use only. The
jumper block adjacent to the SATA interface connector on SATA 300MB/s drives can be used to
force the drive into SATA 150MB/s mode for use with older SATA controllers that only work with
SATA 150MB/s drives.

With a Serial ATA interface, each disk drive has its own cable that connects directly to a Serial
ATA host adapter or a Serial ATA port on your motherboard. Unlike Parallel ATA, there is no
master-slave relationship between drives that use a Serial ATA interface.

You can use a Serial ATA drive in the same system with Parallel ATA drives as long as both
interfaces are supported on the motherboard or with a host adapter. This makes it easy to add
Serial ATA compatibility to your existing system without removing existing Parallel ATA disk
drives.
According to what i can find its a Manufacture specific firmware terminal that aids in HDD
recovery. PC USB Terminal adapter There's a few images on this page that shows how to
connect a USB cable to those ports using Manufacture specific adapters.

That's a temperature port compatible for iMac.

Although this might be a right response, but this is not the right answer.