I have a Dell 2850 which I've been fairly happy with. It runs RAID 5 to 6 Hot-swap SCSI drives, but I'd like to add some cheap storage. So I bought an Intel PCI-X SATA raid card and tried to install it.
Problem is that my 2U server doesn't have any SATA power connectors(Doh!!). I have two options I'd like to try.
1) Can I cut out 2 or all of the SCSI drives and swap them for hotswap SATA?
2) Can I add SATA power connectors to my board/power supply or a external SATA power?
Best Answer
To power your drives just cut off a cpu power connector from a old power supply and cut off a molex connector and wire them like this Power Diagram:
Then in the front drive tray part of your 2850 you will see a little rail and under it the is where the SCSI cables connect to, directly right from that there should be a little cpu power connector
Just plug in your modified power cable in and it should power up!
Also just a note, i have checked the voltages and this is indeed correct, i tried it with 2 different 2850 models and it works. also checked the voltages on each pin. Also make sure that the connector lock is on the left when your looking at the unit from the front. I currently don't know how to make it hotswapable so i'll leave that up to you to figure out!