[SOLVED] Crazy "Slimline Sata" connection on MB. Will a HDD run off this thing? (HP Elitedesk 800 G1 USDT)

joeljoel1947

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Hi all,
I have searched high and low and can't seem to find an answer for this.

I have a HP Elitedesk 800 G1 USDT (Ultra Small Desk Top) I got for fun on the cheap to throw in a virtual pinball cabinet I'm making. It's VERY small, but essentially it's a laptop motherboard so it's VERY limited for upgrade options..

I slapped a 250GB SSD with windows 10 on it into the main bay and it runs like a champ (i5-4690s/8GB RAM). In the 2nd Bay there is an optical drive that I don't need. It's connected with a crazy slimline sata connector from it, directly to the MB. One wire goes to a standard SATA connection on the MB and for power the other wire to like a 5 pin power connector on the MB.

My question is---can I rip out the optical drive, buy some sort of adapter, and slap in a secondary HDD or SSD? Here are some pics... Thanks in advance!!!
https://ibb.co/wyVxsXD
https://ibb.co/cwf4CVm

https://ibb.co/YjMY7mG
 
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Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
If you do put in a secondary SSD caddy and storage to it, I'd advise on having an HDD on it or perhaps a very cheap no name brand SSD in case that port lacks enough power for the storage device. If your system is supposed to be for a pinball machine, why the extra storage...?
 

joeljoel1947

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Yea, that's my fear. The MB won't have enough "juice" to run the HDD. I just don't want to fry the PC trying it. But I'm not sure if a HDD sucks more power then the optical drive it's currently powering??

The pinball image I'm using is 181GB (every pinball FX table and 1000s of others). Plus I have a vertical arcade image that is 60GB I'm putting on it. So I'm pretty much out of storage already. Of course I could just use an external USB slim drive which is what I'll end up doing unless I know for sure I won't fry the MB by trying to power a SSD or HDD off the slimline sata ports on the MB.
 

joeljoel1947

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