Best way to power many HD's

[luca]

I'm wondering what do you guys do to power builds with a large number of hard drives. So far I've been using a PCP&C Silencer 750 PSU, which of course has only a fraction of the SATA plugs I needed, so I added a bunch of ugly molex/SATA Y cables.

 

Just recently one of these power splitters suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason. This got me  thinking: what is the point of having a reliable PSU, if in the end all is connected via some cheapo connectors that can (and often will) stop working any time they please.

 

Are there any PSU's with say 16 or more power connectors, possibly monorail and modular?  Or have you found a brand of reliable splitters, or what?

[WeeboTech]

I do not use the sata cables on my set up.

 

I Use 5in3 cages and choose a supply large enough to power them.

I use a modular power supply and got a few extra molex cables in the mix.

 

[BRiT]

I think most use the 4-in-3 or 5-in-3 hard drive cages, which take 1-2 power plugs to power all the drives, or use their NORCO case, which has a powered backplane for the drives.

[Joe L.]

I'm wondering what do you guys do to power builds with a large number of hard drives. So far I've been using a PCP&C Silencer 750 PSU, which of course has only a fraction of the SATA plugs I needed, so I added a bunch of ugly molex/SATA Y cables.

 

Just recently one of these power splitters suddenly stopped working for no apparent reason. This got me  thinking: what is the point of having a reliable PSU, if in the end all is connected via some cheapo connectors that can (and often will) stop working any time they please.

 

Are there any PSU's with say 16 or more power connectors, possibly monorail and modular?  Or have you found a brand of reliable splitters, or what?

There is a huge issue with ANY power supply if you are relying on a few connections to it combined with multiple splitters.

 

See the series of posts in this thread starting at this post :

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2031.msg58261#msg58261

 

and this post where I too had several bad spliitters

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2920.msg24176#msg24176

 

For SATA  I'd use a couple of these:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=5188&seq=1&format=2

or these

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=5187&seq=1&format=2

 

Just try to keep the lengths to the power supply as short as possible with as few "connectors" in between as possible.

 

Joe L.

[bcbgboy13]

You can use a single Molex to SATA adapter and not the Y-splitter (Molex to two SATA)

 

In this case if a single one of them becomes bad you still have everything OK - but you will have to catch this one on time...

 

Something like this one as it has a latch:

 

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=3721&seq=1&format=2

[terrastrife]

if you arent using backplanes, do this.

 

 

my PSU actually has 21 SATA connectors but they arent really in the right spot so just get some IDT/crimp connectors.

 

splitters cause massive stress on the psu due to resistance, never use them, ever. makes yoru 1000W psu perform crappier than a 500W one.

[luca]

There is a huge issue with ANY power supply if you are relying on a few connections to it combined with multiple splitters.

 

Yes, I'm starting to see that. I did't have more than 4 drives being fed by one molex connector, which I think should be OK, ampere-wise. I think that in my case the problem was purely of intermittent connection, not of insufficient capacity from the PSU.

 

Anyway, now I reduced the load to two drive per molex, getting rid of all the 1-to-4 cables.

 

and this post where I too had several bad spliitters

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=2920.msg24176#msg24176

 

For SATA  I'd use a couple of these:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=5188&seq=1&format=2

or these

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10226&cs_id=1022604&p_id=5187&seq=1&format=2

 

Joe, sorry but these were exactly the monoprice splitter that I had in my case. They started failing left and right all of a sudden. After replacing the first one (the post to which you kindly replied), other 2 were working intermittently. I have now replaced all those monoprice cables with older 1-to-2 with a white molex connector, and the server is rebuilding.

 

I'd like to find a reliable solution to this, ideally a PSU with a sufficient number of plugs? My STB-3T4-E3-GP cages don't offer any help in this respect, all the drives still need to be powered one by one.

 

 

[luca]

if you arent using backplanes, do this.

 

 

my PSU actually has 21 SATA connectors but they arent really in the right spot so just get some IDT/crimp connectors.

 

splitters cause massive stress on the psu due to resistance, never use them, ever. makes yoru 1000W psu perform crappier than a 500W one.

 

terrastrife, that looks good. Did you build your own cables? Could you please give further details? Also, which PSU has 21 SATA connectors? The most I could find was the HX1000 which has, I think, 12. Not enough, besides, I really don't need 1000W. 

[terrastrife]

Enermax Galaxy DXX has 21 sata, but it actually has 24 connectors, ie you can run 21 sata + 3 molex or 21 molex and 3 sata, or any configuration multiple of 3 in between. The only PSU that comes with every cable that you dont need as well instead of giving you say 6 modular connectors and only 3 sata cables for it

 

it has been supersceded by the Revolution85+ which only has 18 sata i believe.

 

The sata connectors are

Molex part number 67926-0011 for the sata power connector and

67926-0041 for the end cap.

 

I have just clipped them onto the PSUs modular cables.