One disk needs around 10-12 watts 12 volt if the drive is 3.5 inch, so one hdd needs 1 amp. ( 20 amp 12 volt watt=voltxamp). For example, 240 watt power supply can feed 10-15 drives. You should count at least % 20 percent more power than needed.
12 volt 5 amp is 60 watts. So it can feed 4 drives safely. But 5 drives may be risky. How many drives do you have?
I would advize you to buy a pc power supply. Thats what I did for external 3.5 inch drives. This kind of power supply has shortcut protection and fan cooler.
Or a cheaper one
If you buy that, you will also need 4 pin molex to 5.5 mm power jack.
Correct however lots that would buy an ATX power supply would be stuck suddenly … how to get power without a motherboard… you might have added that lil part , from paperclip trick till well decent DIY
How exactly do you wire many adapters to one atx psu? What are the numbers involved exactly? I have 15 12v1.5A wall adapters. And a 1000w power supply I’m not using. do I just take all the + and solder it to the 12v? and likewise with negative? Than just power on the supply? Any best practices for this exactly. I’d like not to not burn down my farm.
I use 300 watt psu for five external 3.5 inch disks without any problem. Psu has a very important advantage over wall power which is shourtcut protection. If you do not want risk you can buy two camera power jack splitters (one to eight available) and two 4 pin male molex to 5.5 mm power jack.
Generally psu has two 4 pin female molex output. Red wire is +5 volt.
Also you should learn how to run a psu without mainboard. Its very simple to make a shortcut between two pins. If your psu has no power switch, you can use a switch for the shortcut.
Just look after the green wire in the cable tree from the PSU. Follow it to the 20 or 24pin ATX plug. The green cable is in a way the “reciever” you need to power up the PSU.
This is all great info tnx guys.
I have an old 450w corsair psu lying around. Im gonna get me some of those molex to jack thing and then get rid of all those annoying powerplugs.( Some of the also make the mostal annoying whining noise ever so good riddance
Edit: I just realized I don’t even need another psu, got plenty of 12V left on my main psu, even better.
Is there a maximum recommended length for molex cables like these?
They work great. I read that their IDE interfaces were garbage but the SATA connection was fine, and my experience corroborates the latter.
All of mine were plug and play, they’ve been working just fine for just over a month now. My only complaint is that the form factor is ugly.
They’re USB 2.0, but that’s plenty for farming. I used a SATA interface for copying plots to the drives, which I would also recommend (or a USB 3 adapter).
You actually got me thinking to finally use a bunch of Z820 monster PSU’s I bought for barely anything a year ago (thought to be smart and resell but never did), need to figure out the HP proprietary stuff but should be possible also, they are 1125W PSU’s that kinda never die … enterprise grade stuff
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