One of these ports is not like the others

Chia Farming & Harvesting
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If you’ve been following my DIY JBOD build, you’ll remember that I’m using server PSUs with mining breakout boards to power almost 100 disks so far.

Here’s a public service announcement if you are doing the same: CHECK THE PORTS ON THE BREAKOUT BOARD

In the picture below, you’ll see that one of the ports was soldered to the board BACKWARDS (2nd column from left, 2nd row, to the left of the voltage readout). Of all 12 ports to choose from, guess which one this guy chose to plug-in. Yep that’s right - I let all the magic smoke out of two of my hard drives. I got lucky that those two took the hit - there were 8 other drives plugged in to that cable but somehow they all survived.

Moral of the story: double-check power ports and don’t assume they are soldered correctly (especially cheaply made ones)!

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Oof! If I fried any of my drives I would be pissed!

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I guess this is kind of another advantage of using smaller older renewed drives - if they get fried, it isn’t a huge loss. These are all 4tb drives, so I did lose 8tb worth of plots and about $80 (drives avg about $40/each) but it certainly could have been worse. I even tried replacing the control boards - I happen to have a few other dead 4tb drives of same model, so I swapped out boards hoping that it was just the board that got fried. But nope - the drives wouldn’t even turn on so it fried the motors and everything.

I am going to send a very sternly-worded letter to the Amazon seller of those breakout boards though!! I better at least get a free replacement with all ports correct lol!!

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