Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

[Gabriel]

Who would have thought that a T3600 workstation only would have room for 2 3.5" drives ? - I'm going to use this as a file server so I bought a 4 bay 2.5" bay that I will fit on top of the powersupply and below the pcie cards - another bay to convert 5.25" to 1x 3.5" and 2x 2,5".



Another problem is the powersupply, Dell has only provided 3 sata power connections and psu only provides 12V so 5V is regulated at the motherboard.
I need at least 10A for all drives but I don't think mb will provide that.



My plans are to make one adapter to use one of the pcie 12V lines for 12V for drives and the other pcie 12V line for 5V for the drives with the use of a step down regulator.

Ebay Regulator 15A

Any comments on doing it this way ?

[diif]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

Are there no four pin molex connectors ?
If not, surely it would be easier to chop into one of the cables with the sata power and solder in an extra one or two ?

Or buy a couple of these...even easier. http://www.ebay.com/itm/BRAND-NEW-20...item4ad0ed9d23

[shovenose]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

Using a SATA splitter is your way better option, as @diif said.

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

No 4-pin molex, problem with chopping into sata power is that I need at least 6 more sata connections and that will be close to 9A more to draw from motherboard 5V.

Got several of those splitters but I don't think mb will be happy providing additional 9A or will it ?

[diif]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

The power comes from the power supply not your motherboard. Where do you get 9A from ? A hard drive draws about half an amp.

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

I will be using SSD's and some of them need 1A other need 1.5A - it is difficult to see but 5V is regulated at motherboard and not directly from PSU to drives.
If you see the last picture you can follow the red wires that goes to SATA power connection from MB - as you can see no 5V from ATX plug.

[diif]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

I can't see this connector on the motherboard you are talking about. Only the board the power supply plugs into. it does look like the 5v rail is only 4A though.
Maybe your original idea would work, this PC was designed as a high end work station not as a server, hence why it's not designed to have many drives attached.

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

The 4A rail is for 5vsb, it's not used to provide power for the drives but used for stanby power - again the motherboard provides 5V for the drives NOT the powersupply.

Took a few more pictures to show how the drives get 5V.


In this picture you can see 2 red 5V wires coming from the motherboard inside the wiresleeve and exiting right before the 24 pins plug. One red wire goes to two sata powercabels and the other 5v goes up under the motherboard to the 5.25" bay in front of the computer.


The other 5V ends here.


Another closeup showing the u-turn the red 5V takes.


No red 5V cabels on the 24 pins plug.


Closeup of the psu rails, all rails are 12V just as the psu cover says in the picture in first post.


And of course this is my problem, I need 5V for my drives and as 2.5" ssd's only use 5V and are power hungry I need at least 9A to provide juice for 6 ssd's . With 9A I'm safe and still have xtra power for adding another 3.5" hdd in the 5.25" bay.

Thats why I'm wondering if this regulator is a safe and smart way to solve the problem.

Do you guys think it will provide atx spec and safe 5V for the drives or are other options better ?

[c_hegge]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

Don't use photobucket or any other 3rd party image hosting here. Attach your pictures locally - see https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1868

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

I tried that but the upload window timed out twice, don't know why but I seem to remember a thread about the same thing happening to others too.

[c_hegge]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

OK. Fair enough, then

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

Got this 5v 10A supply to power the ssd's , it will fit in the 5.25" just fine.

Question about earth and chassi ground when I wire this up, it it a bad idea to earth powersupply chassis to pc chassis ?

Can I connect powersupply chassis to Vout - and then to pc chassis ?

[stj]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

chassis to chassis

dont forget ventilation.

[Stefan Payne]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

Uh, ohh, CapXon (OK, GL series wich are better than KF according to their Diagram) secondary...
Well, I don't think we're gonna die because of that...
Should last a couple of years with those...

But i'm surprised about the size. The last time I had a 12V to 5V DC-DC converter it looked like this:


Well, OK, that one is burned, so I'm looking for ways to fix that somehow...

The difference is, of course, this Meanwell PSU seems to be an isolated powersupply while the one in my picture is not.

€dit:
You may want to add some caps into the +5V line of this Mean Well unit.
Because it's specced for 100mV Ripple on the +5V model.

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

chassis to chassis

dont forget ventilation.

Ok, so I can't connect this MealWell powersupply chassis to Vout -(negative) and then to pc chassis to have the same ground potential on the drives powered by this Mw psu as the controller ? Sure, I will check temp after some use.

Uh, ohh, CapXon (OK, GL series wich are better than KF according to their Diagram) secondary...
Well, I don't think we're gonna die because of that...
Should last a couple of years with those...


€dit:
You may want to add some caps into the +5V line of this Mean Well unit.
Because it's specced for 100mV Ripple on the +5V model.

Yes I hope for a few years too - it's easy to service should it pop.

Hmm 100mV, didn't check the spec of atx supplies before I bought this - time for me to google.

Edit

Ok atx spec is 50mV ripple on 5V line, crap....

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

€dit:
You may want to add some caps into the +5V line of this Mean Well unit.
Because it's specced for 100mV Ripple on the +5V model.

Anyone know how to calculate the caps size and impedance to use when adding caps on this psu ? or is it good enough to replace the CapXon with better quality ?

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

Today and tested the mw supply with 4 ssd each rated for 1A.

Turning computer on max voltage is 5.017V and then settles for 5.006V wich is better then I expected.

I made a pcie cable adapter since I have no graphics card using that connection to supply 12V to the mw psu, as you might be able to see the 4 pin molex gets 5V and ground from the mw supply and 12V is coming from the pcie connector powered by the Dell psu.

I have grounded the mw supply to computer chassis.

That means that 5V ground and 12V ground has different potentials - Will this cause a problem when powering a 3.5" drive that uses both 12V and 5V ?

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

I have now been using this as a host for 3 virtual machines and as a file server for a few months and everything is working as it should.

So far I have fitted 3 3.5" 3TB in raid 5 and 2 ssd's in raid 0 - I will be adding two more ssd for vm storage later.

Thanks to fzabkar for all the help in modifying the Lsi bbu for the raid card.

I also modified the heatsink for the raid controller and fitted a fan, in idle I measured 58-61C and with the new heatsink and fan I measured 34C.

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

More pictures

[Gabriel]

Re: Dell T3600 - adding drive bays

Standard heatsink vs the one I used from the graphics card. I used a htc phone battery for the bbu, it's working as it should.