The 0.250" (6.35 mm) row spacing gives you room to route larger-gauge wires without crowding the cavity — useful when the harness carries power alongside signal lines. The housing accepts either male or female crimp contacts, so the same shell can serve as the plug half regardless of which side carries the pin.
A common BOM mistake is to order just the housing and discover mid-build that the harness has no current path. Match the terminal to your wire gauge; the series supports a range of AWG sizes depending on the specific terminal part number.
How the 9-Position 3-Row Stacks Against the 6-Position 2-Row Sibling
The closest functional sibling in the Universal MATE-N-LOK family is the 1-1644055-3 — a 6-position, 2-row plug housing. The 794537-1 adds three more circuits across an extra row, which changes the cavity layout from a 2x3 grid to a 3x3 grid. If your harness needs exactly 6 circuits and you want to minimise connector width, the 2-row housing saves panel space. If you need 9 circuits, the 3-row housing keeps the connector block compact rather than stacking two 6-position housings side-by-side.