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Options to Expand Sata HDD Drives on a Lenovo Computer (lemmy.ca)

submitted 5 months 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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[–] Talos@sopuli.xyz 2 points 5 months ago

You don’t have to power the HDD via the motherboard, I’m 99% certain. No modern PC I’ve ever seen requires this. Your manual is ambiguous about connecting an HHD - it doesn’t explicitly say connect the power to either mobo or PSU which sows confusion. Furthering the confusion is that there are two SATA power connectors but those are not for 3.5” drives, they are for low-power bs like card readers. But big power hungry drives must be connected to the PSU directly. (Check your 10TB HDD and take a look. If it actually is connected via your mobo, you could try re-directing just the power to your PSU and see if it works (it will)).

For your new HDD, just see if there’s a 4-pin Molex from your PSU that is unused and get an adapter, or get a splitter for one of the existing SATA power cables from the PSU and stick it into the HDD, alongside the SATA data cable from the mobo.

Two more minor issues:

Your power supply might struggle with any more than 2 HDDs. Since you’re just putting in a second, you should be good, but maybe check your PSU to see if you have any headroom. Your manual says you might have a 180W PSU, or a 210W or a 260W. It’s worth taking a look to avoid any future problems.
Are you using TrueNAS to run these drives in RAID? If so, as far as I know, with TrueNAS RAID you can’t mix different HDD sizes in a RAID. Or you can, but it downsizes to the smallest drive size, so you’d effectively have two 8TB drives. If no RAID then I think you’re golden.