Question Dell Precision 5820 Tower - Connecting HDDs inside the desktop

[la chupacabra]

Hello, I've got Dell Precision 5820 Tower and would like to connect additional HDD drives (another 3) inside the desktop (not using front panel Flexbays). Does anyone know how to do this? What SATA data and power cable I'll need to do this and how to to install it? Do I connect it to PSU or motherboard?
Kind Regards

 

[Lafong]

Do I connect it to PSU or motherboard?

Both.

2 connections for each drive; one for power and another for the data on the drive.

I have NO idea if your motherboard can accommodate 3 new drives. You'd have to look at the manual. Most likely it can.

You need 3 places to mount the drives. That's dependent on the Dell case. Maybe it has 3 places; maybe it doesn't. Look at the manual.

 

[beyondlogic]

Hello, I've got Dell Precision 5820 Tower and would like to connect additional HDD drives (another 3) inside the desktop (not using front panel Flexbays). Does anyone know how to do this? What SATA data and power cable I'll need to do this and how to to install it? Do I connect it to PSU or motherboard?
Kind Regards

if your trying to get the most out that system without using the other drives your gonna have to use 2.5 inch drives

sata drives ssd which are usually the same as hdd in price.
otherwise your looking at laptop drives 2.5 hdd. ( not recomended)

you will need the following a 5.25 conversion bracket to 2.5 inch adapter

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

these stack inside the 5.25 bay.

manual page 41

https://dl.dell.com/content/manual32840811-dell-precision-5820-tower-owner-s-manual.pdf?language=en-us

you will need to connect said drives with a sata cables you'll need 3.
And to put them in the sata port on motherboard and sd

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

page 72 and item 29 on motherboard diagram

you will now need cables to power them sadly i cant see what cables you have aviable to use

2 combinations come to mind
molex to sata this limits you 2 only 2 drives though

Amazon.com

or the 4 over sata

Amazon.com

you may need 2.5 drive screws to attach to the 5.25 bay

any issues gives a pm or reply here

 

[Misgar]

If your Dell 5280 is the same as the computer in this review, you're out of luck if the four primary drive bays are not an option. Are they already full?

https://au.pcmag.com/desktop-pcs/64812/dell-precision-5820-2019
The fact that Dell offers the Precision 5820 with up to 68TB (with a T) of total storage and 256GB of RAM should be enough to tell you this is a serious machine.

Nowadays, with modern HAMR drives exceeding 30TB, you could probably increase total capacity from 68TB to more than 120TB split over 4 drives in caddies.

Getting down to upgrade options, the review states:

As for storage, the Precision supports up to five 3.5-inch or six 2.5-inch SATA drives. Dell also offers optional Ultra-Speed Drives, not included in our review unit, which are PCIe x8 cards holding two or four M.2 slots for SSDs. The four primary drive bays (supporting 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives or M.2 drives with caddies) face out of the tower front. Accessing them entails removing the right-side grate, easily done by pushing the release lever along the centerline.

They also say "One more 3.5-inch drive can fit in the 5.25-inch bay, which was empty in our review unit" but if this is filled with an optical drive, there's no more room.

As the picture below shows, there is some free space inside the workstation under the main drive cradle, but nowhere to bolt things down. You could "dangle" SATA SSDs in this space or secure them with Ty-raps, but I wouldn't try this with 3.5in hard disks, partly due to their size, the fact their cases are conductive metal and the potential lack of cooling.

There's also the question as to how many spare SATA ports remain on the motherboard. I somehow doubt Dell have included 3 spare SATA ports, because there's no room for additional drives. Take the side panel off and count the empty SATA port connectors before proceeding.

If there aren't any spare SATA ports, you could fit a Dell-badged LSI SAS controller card in one of the spare PCIe slots and fit three 2.5in server class SAS (or SATA) drives and bodge them into the empty space, but it's hardly an elegant solution. N.B. 2.5in drives run cooler than 3.5in drives and take up less room. Server drives are more reliable (and expensive) than laptop drives.

TLDR. If your workstation matches the unit above, you cannot fit three additional 3.5in hard disk drives if the four front panel bays are not an option. Consider upgrading your existing drives to new drives of higher capacity, e.g. 16TB, 20TB, etc.

 

[la chupacabra]

Thank you very much for all advice.
I've already used 3 front bays for 3.5" 4TB drives, but I have another 2x 3.5" 2TB HDD drives and 2x 1TB 2.5" SSD drives that I wanted to connect.
I don't mind to put 3.5" HDDs at the bottom of the case, but there are no SATA power cables or connectors on the mobo (previous Dell Precision PCs had 5pin connector on the motherboard t o connect SATA power cable extension).
There is a free white 10-pin connector on the PSU, but I don't know if it can be used for a SATA power cable extension
With that 5.25" drive bay I think I will have the same problem; no available SATA power cable

 

[beyondlogic]

Thank you very much for all advice.
I've already used 3 front bays for 3.5" 4TB drives, but I have another 2x 3.5" 2TB HDD drives and 2x 1TB 2.5" SSD drives that I wanted to connect.
I don't mind to put 3.5" HDDs at the bottom of the case, but there are no SATA power cables or connectors on the mobo (previous Dell Precision PCs had 5pin connector on the motherboard t o connect SATA power cable extension).
There is a free white 10-pin connector on the PSU, but I don't know if it can be used for a SATA power cable extension
With that 5.25" drive bay I think I will have the same problem; no available SATA power cable

if you have no free sata ports on the motherboard do you have a free pci slot ?

Amazon.co.uk

 

[Misgar]

You could use some cheap and nasty SATA power splitter cables from Amazon, but they probably won't reach down to the bottom of the case

Amazon and eBay also sell longer power cableforms, with a male SATA connector at one end and four female SATA connectors distributed along the length, so you can adapt a single power connector on your PSU to drive four hard disks.

You'll also need a four port SATA card (PCIe x1) to provide additional data connections to the extra drives. These can be under $20.

 

[Ralston18]

@la chupacabra

By my count, there are three drives now installed with four more drives planned.

Total = 7 drives.

And "large" drives at that with respect to drive capacity and physical size for the HDD's. All will require power especially the HDDs. Plus I would have concerns about keeping the tower, components, and drives all cool.

What is the reason/requirement for installing up to 7 (if possible) drives in one case?

If something goes terribly astray you could lose all drives and data in one single bad event.

Any reason or reasons for not using external drives outside of the case? Still problematic though.

What about a NAS? Or online storage somewhere? Or both. FreeNAS is an option to consider.

The whole case and drive(s) configuration/setup is moving towards cumbersome.

When problems or potential problems start lining up then that may be time to rethink things a bit.....

Just my thoughts on the matter.

 

[la chupacabra]

Sorry for the late reply. I do have a free 1 PCI and couple of PCIe slots, so I think I will probably get that PCIe SATA card like Beyondlogic and Misgar recommended

 

[la chupacabra]

@la chupacabra

By my count, there are three drives now installed with four more drives planned.

Total = 7 drives.

And "large" drives at that with respect to drive capacity and physical size for the HDD's. All will require power especially the HDDs. Plus I would have concerns about keeping the tower, components, and drives all cool.

What is the reason/requirement for installing up to 7 (if possible) drives in one case?

If something goes terribly astray you could lose all drives and data in one single bad event.

Any reason or reasons for not using external drives outside of the case? Still problematic though.

What about a NAS? Or online storage somewhere? Or both. FreeNAS is an option to consider.

The whole case and drive(s) configuration/setup is moving towards cumbersome.

When problems or potential problems start lining up then that may be time to rethink things a bit.....

Just my thoughts on the matter.

I've got couple of good HDDs and SSDs, which I wanted to use for data storage (including video recordings from Insta X360 which takes a lot of space) and regular local backups.
I also have cloud and external disk backups, so I should be covered if something goes wrong.

 

[la chupacabra]

Thank you very much for all advice

 

[beyondlogic]

Thank you very much for all advice

no problem glad to be of help if you want faster storage options since you said you had a few pci e slots left you can always get a nvme 3.0 drive as well later on down the line using this pci e adapter

Amazon.co.uk

 

[la chupacabra]

Unfortunately that Startech PCIe to SATA extension is only for the data transfer. Won't provide power, so would not work for me. I have plenty of free SATA data connectors on the motherboard, but missing SATA power connectors.
Two things I would like to ask:
1. This desktop uses power distribution board with different connectors (TV5X6). Are any of these connectors fine to use to provide power to SATA 3.5" HDDs (using appropriate cable\adapter) and would it be safe to use?
2. I also found one SATA power cable; would it be safe to use 4-way Startech power splitter? I would like to connect
1x 2.5" 2TB HDD
2x 3.5" 2TB HDD and
1x 1TB 2.5" SSD
If it increase a risk that one of the drives (or other hardware) may fail then I think I'm just going to use external drives instead