I Need a SATA Cable Splitter?

[The Whale Bear]

So I'm planning on getting a new HDD for my Inspiron 537 (I've gotten a graphics card, 4GB of Ram, and gave it a Core 2 Duo), and I'm running out of storage (296 GB in total). My knowledge is good with some parts of a computer (CPU, Ram Graphics Card), but I'm horrible when it comes to the Power Supply, Motherboard, and HDD. I know that the HDD requires two wires (For me one of them is a Right Angle at the end). I'm fine with the wide one, I have 2 of those connected to my power supply, so I can connect one to another HDD any time. My issue is that my Motherboard only has one port for the Right Angled one (The SATA Data Cable I believe). So is it possible to get a splitter for it, and if so can I get linked to one.

 

[USAFRet]

So I'm planning on getting a new HDD for my Inspiron 537 (I've gotten a graphics card, 4GB of Ram, and gave it a Core 2 Duo), and I'm running out of storage (296 GB in total). My knowledge is good with some parts of a computer (CPU, Ram Graphics Card), but I'm horrible when it comes to the Power Supply, Motherboard, and HDD. I know that the HDD requires two wires (For me one of them is a Right Angle at the end). I'm fine with the wide one, I have 2 of those connected to my power supply, so I can connect one to another HDD any time. My issue is that my Motherboard only has one port for the Right Angled one (The SATA Data Cable I believe). So is it possible to get a splitter for it, and if so can I get linked to one.

No, there is no such thing as a "splitter" for a SATA data cable.
Each drive needs to go to a different port on the motherboard.

Your PSU should have enough spare ends for the power cable to this drive.

 

[The Whale Bear]

So I'm planning on getting a new HDD for my Inspiron 537 (I've gotten a graphics card, 4GB of Ram, and gave it a Core 2 Duo), and I'm running out of storage (296 GB in total). My knowledge is good with some parts of a computer (CPU, Ram Graphics Card), but I'm horrible when it comes to the Power Supply, Motherboard, and HDD. I know that the HDD requires two wires (For me one of them is a Right Angle at the end). I'm fine with the wide one, I have 2 of those connected to my power supply, so I can connect one to another HDD any time. My issue is that my Motherboard only has one port for the Right Angled one (The SATA Data Cable I believe). So is it possible to get a splitter for it, and if so can I get linked to one.

No, there is no such thing as a "splitter" for a SATA data cable.
Each drive needs to go to a different port on the motherboard.

Your PSU should have enough spare ends for the power cable to this drive.

I believe we are not on the same page here. I'm looking for the smaller one, the one that connects from the motherboard to the HDD, not the PSU.

 

[The Whale Bear]

So I'm planning on getting a new HDD for my Inspiron 537 (I've gotten a graphics card, 4GB of Ram, and gave it a Core 2 Duo), and I'm running out of storage (296 GB in total). My knowledge is good with some parts of a computer (CPU, Ram Graphics Card), but I'm horrible when it comes to the Power Supply, Motherboard, and HDD. I know that the HDD requires two wires (For me one of them is a Right Angle at the end). I'm fine with the wide one, I have 2 of those connected to my power supply, so I can connect one to another HDD any time. My issue is that my Motherboard only has one port for the Right Angled one (The SATA Data Cable I believe). So is it possible to get a splitter for it, and if so can I get linked to one.

No, there is no such thing as a "splitter" for a SATA data cable.
Each drive needs to go to a different port on the motherboard.

Your PSU should have enough spare ends for the power cable to this drive.

It looks like this http://www.l-com.com/firewire-din-scsi-sata-sata-cables-straight-to-right-angle-connector-orientations

 

[USAFRet]

Right. The SATA data cable.

1 drive, 1 cable, 1 motherboard port.
There is no "splitter".

I only mentioned the SATA power, because, obviously, each drive needs both.

 

[The Whale Bear]

Thanks for bearing with me, but does this mean I can't add a second HDD?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for bearing with me, but does this mean I can't add a second HDD?

How many accessible SATA ports are there on your motherboard?

 

[BFG-9000]

What you are asking for is a port multiplier, which indeed splits a SATA port into many like a hub or switch. They are not generally recommended because of the problems they can cause (requests to one drive can timeout when another drive is being accessed) and because the shared nature of the bandwidth limits performance.

As you have a desktop with both PCI and x1 PCIe slots, you could pretty much add as many ports as you'd like.

The question though is, why are you trying to also use an old 320GB drive that's worth about $10? If you simply replace it with a nice new 2TB drive you will have 6x the space and it will be much faster also. Simply clone the old drive to the new one and keep it in a drawer as a backup.

Note that without UEFI your board cannot boot Windows from any drive larger than 2TB. If you are willing to give up using your optical drive, even an 8TB or larger drive will plug into its port but you can't boot from it.

 

[The Whale Bear]

Thanks for bearing with me, but does this mean I can't add a second HDD?

How many accessible SATA ports are there on your motherboard?

From what I can tell, one. But is there any other way?

 

[The Whale Bear]

What you are asking for is a port multiplier, which indeed splits a SATA port into many like a hub or switch. They are not generally recommended because of the problems they can cause (requests to one drive can timeout when another drive is being accessed) and because the shared nature of the bandwidth limits performance.

As you have a desktop with both PCI and x1 PCIe slots, you could pretty much add as many ports as you'd like.

The question though is, why are you trying to also use an old 320GB drive that's worth about $10? If you simply replace it with a nice new 2TB drive you will have 6x the space and it will be much faster also. Simply clone the old drive to the new one and keep it in a drawer as a backup.

Note that without UEFI your board cannot boot Windows from any drive larger than 2TB. If you are willing to give up using your optical drive, even an 8TB or larger drive will plug into its port but you can't boot from it.

Well it's mainly because I'm not willing to spend much and I don't need THAT much space, I've had 296 GB for the past 9 years and there has been no issue, I'm only looking to double that, but I do see your point.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for bearing with me, but does this mean I can't add a second HDD?

How many accessible SATA ports are there on your motherboard?

From what I can tell, one. But is there any other way?

A picture of this motherboard, please?
Or the exact make/model number of the board.

And $45 for a 1TB drive would fix your issues.

 

[BFG-9000]

Those add-on port cards I linked too are relatively inexpensive, but I would rather apply the cost towards a larger drive.

If you only want to install a secondary drive, then unplugging the optical drive's data cable and using that would be a viable no-cost option if you seldom ever use DVDs or CDs. There should be two ports on your board right next to each other--a black one and a blue one.

 

[The Whale Bear]

Those add-on port cards I linked too are relatively inexpensive, but I would rather apply the cost towards a larger drive.

If you only want to install a secondary drive, then unplugging the optical drive's data cable and using that would be a viable no-cost option if you seldom ever use DVDs or CDs. There should be two ports on your board right next to each other--a black one and a blue one.

The tip about the Optical Drive helped, that's all I needed to know! Thanks!

 

[The Whale Bear]

Thanks for bearing with me, but does this mean I can't add a second HDD?

How many accessible SATA ports are there on your motherboard?

From what I can tell, one. But is there any other way?

A picture of this motherboard, please?
Or the exact make/model number of the board.

And $45 for a 1TB drive would fix your issues.

Although the other guy solved it for me, the motherboard is https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-Systems-Motherboard-G41T-DM/dp/B00FLT9RY0 just in case you wanted it for future reference. And I just want something for about $20 that I need, because I know for a fact I will never exceed 400GB.

 

[USAFRet]

Although the other guy solved it for me, the motherboard is https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-Systems-Motherboard-G41T-DM/dp/B00FLT9RY0 just in case you wanted it for future reference. And I just want something for about $20 that I need, because I know for a fact I will never exceed 400GB.

Right.
So there are 2 SATA ports. One currently being used for the HDD, and one for the DVD.

Either ditch the DVD, get a larger HDD, or get another HDD and a $15 USB dock.
https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexStar-Single-Drive-NST-D328S3-BK/dp/B01L9AZDRE

 

[The Whale Bear]

I'll keep that in mind while it is shipping, the extra 15$ may be worth it but the thing is external is it's a maybe, but I'll most likely stick to the removing the DVD part, last time I used it was about 2 years ago, and that was for the drivers for my printer.