700psu Hdd Qouestion

[RobbinHood]

hey guys looking into buying this
http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=5176

my question is how many hardrives can u daisy chain of 1 molex line as in 1 line comes out of the psu with 3 molex connectors how many hdds can i daisy chain of that one line before i have problems

thanks in advance

 

[drescherjm]

I would not go much more than 8 drives unless you have a raid card that does staggered spinup. Remember drives use 20 to 25W at spinup.

 

[RobbinHood]

hrmm well i have 2x rocketraid 2680 and 16 drives

the card supports stagered spinup

can any of u recomment a psu for 16 drives ?

is there like a maximum amount of wats i can run off one line

 

[drescherjm]

I would just put molex connectors on some of the sata power branches.

Or use something like this:

http://www.cooldrives.com/4mooufrsapoc.html

 

[RobbinHood]

yea i could so that is there some sort of maximum amount of watts on each line

 

[drescherjm]

What I meant about the molex on the sata lines was this:

http://www.jab-tech.com/ConnectorZ-90-Degree-END-CAP-Molex-Connector-Black-pr-3154.html

At work I just did this myself. Since I have a 650W supply with 2 4 pin molex branches and two SATA power branches. And I have 3 supermicro 5 in 3s that take only molex connectors. I didn't want to run 10 drives from a single branch so I found one of the connectors above from an older antec supply and used that on one of my two sata branches.

 

[drescherjm]

yea i could so that is there some sort of maximum amount of watts on each line

I am not sure of the absolute maximum but 8 drives approaches 200W at spinup assuming 25W per drive. You may get away with less especially if you use 5400 RPM drives. Check the specifications of the drives. 25W is will probably be higher than most 2011 drives unless they have 5 platters.

 

[RobbinHood]

oh yer that would be easier ill try look for them on ebay get me a couple

 

[drescherjm]

My only word of advice is make sure you wire it the correct way. The connector I had from the Antec power supply had each pin labeled so I did not have to worry about getting it backwards. However I am not sure all connectors like this will. You could easily test with a case fan if you do not have a voltmeter.