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Options to Expand Sata HDD Drives on a Lenovo Computer (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 days ago by qwestjest78@lemmy.ca to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I bought a refurbished Lenovo M720s computer last summer to use as a homelab at my house. I loaded True Nas onto the internal SSD and swapped out the HDD drive that came with it for a 10tb drive. I also threw a 500gb drive in the M.2 slot to use for applications with True Nas.

All has been fine up to now. Recently though I aquired a 8tb HDD for cheap and figured I would throw it into the homelab for some extra storage. There was a extra Sata connector free on the motherboard anyway. I put in the drive and connect it, but then I realize that there is not another Sata power connector I can use for this drive. This computer makes you connect power to the drives from the motherboard and not the power supply.

So I am at a bit of a roadblock. I know I am pushing the capabilities of this little machine, but it seems silly that they give you 3 Sata ports but only 2 power ports for Sata drives. I guess they were probably intending for one of those ports to just be used for a DVD drive.

I went to a local computer store and they were not very helpful. I asked if I could use a splitter for the power port and they said I would fry my board.

Anyone know any solutions to this? I just need a way to power one more HDD. I will link the manual to the computer so it is easier to see what I am looking at.

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[–] litchralee@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I loaded True Nas onto the internal SSD and swapped out the HDD drive that came with it for a 10tb drive.

Do I understand that you currently have a SATA SSD and a 10TB SATA HDD plugged into this machine?

If so, it seems like a SATA power splitter that divides the power to the SSD would suffice, in spite of the computer store's admonition. The reason for splitting power from the SSD is because an SSD draws much less power than spinning rust.

Can it still go wrong? Yes, but that's the inherent risk when pushing beyond the design criteria of what this machine was originally built for. That said, "going wrong" typically means "won't turn on", not "halt and catch fire".

[–] qwestjest78@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I was thinking of something similar. Especially since the SSD is not doing much beyond running the True Nas OS. So splitting that between a HDD does not feel like it would push things that much more

[–] Witziger_Waschbaer@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkCentre-A-E-M-S-Series/adding-hdd-to-M720s-power-connector/m-p/4377028

Seems to be the way, this thread on the Lenovo forum supports your idea.

There is also a guy on the german mydealz forum, who is running 2 HDDs on one power connector and it seems to work for him (account required to read): https://www.mydealz.de/deals/lenovo-thinkcentre-m720s-sff-office-pc-intel-i3-8100-8gb-ram-aufrustbar-256gb-ssd-window-11-pro-hdmi-usb-c-refurbished-office-pc-2535136

[–] Nawor3565@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 days ago

Also, TrueNAS loads entirely into RAM upon boot, meaning the SSD will only be used once when the computer is powered on. So apart from that few seconds, there won't be any additional power draw from the SSD.