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The HP DL185 G5 8LFF model supports 8 3.5" drives and 1 optical drive. However, instead of the optical drive, I'd like to have 2x 2.5" drives instead. The problem is that the PSU has no more SATA power cables (even though the motherboard has 4 additional SATA data ports). The PSU does have a free 10-pin connector and it looks like the J1520 cable from Dell would fit the bill. Link to cable description

Does anyone have any experience using these cables? Are they safe? Any other ideas for adding the disks to the server if I don't use the cable?

Thanks!

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You don't have too many options for that server. The proper way to add drive capacity is to change to the 12 x LFF drive front cage or add the 2 x LFF drive cage kit (HP part #449736-B21) for the rear to replace the DVD drive.

The power cable looks like it would work. Make sure the 10-pin is the right sex. You can hack together power from the PSU to power a couple of more drives, but note that they will be SATA ports only and would not have access to your RAID controller.

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  • It appears from my research that the kit is limited to the 12LFF model? Are you certain the 8LFF model can support the rear kit?
    – jpreed00
    Sep 11, 2012 at 3:21
  • physically, yes, but it needs to draw power from the PSU and would take two SATA ports from the motherboard. The 12LFF units have a SAS expander on the backplane and two data ports to address the rear cage. I think that's where the requirement comes from.
    – ewwhite
    Sep 11, 2012 at 4:36
  • I know the motherboard has free SATA data ports, but the only power connector available is a 10-pin on the PSU. Does the kit accept that power source? If not, then we're pretty much back to square one.
    – jpreed00
    Sep 11, 2012 at 12:48

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