Acro_Design Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 Hello there. as you may know i am into retrofitting and all that. i have an all in one dell 2310 with a large 3.5 inch gap that will comfortably fit a HDD, since i already have one i thought about what i can do. the mobo has no apparent PSU as such but rather the power cables for various components go through what could be described as micro molexes, the existing 8 pin micro molex for the existing HDD is taken and i cannot see a way of slitting the power from this even if i can split the sata cable with a sata splitter. so i have looked around the board looking for a possible power source for a second HDD. it seems there is a second pci slot (laptop size) with a tv tuner in there that is not used. i was thinking if i could solder my usb sata bridge to this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-0-SATA-Mini-PCI-E-Express-Adapter-Converter-/170545383398#ht_2829wt_1163, do you suppose it would work. im not keen on loosing 2 usb slots to make this work. The usb sata bridge is how i connect my second hard drive but it takes up 2 usbs, one for data and one for power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acro_Design Posted April 30, 2012 Author Share Posted April 30, 2012 i think this will sort out the data side of things, http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004NNRRN8/ref=asc_df_B004NNRRN87662905?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B004NNRRN8 nice little card. on the other side i will get a sata power split cable and there we have it. the other option is to get a pcie 30gb ssd but im not sure if osx will work on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockinron_1 Posted May 1, 2012 Share Posted May 1, 2012 IMHO I would go with the pci-e sata card + the hdd you already mentioned. Reasons are simple - if the OS has detected the SATA card then just install the hdd as a sata one and save yourself the hassle of making it anything different. Also bear in mind your power supply has been designed to handle only what is already built into the system. Adding extra parts increases the risk of overloading & tripping out the power supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acro_Design Posted May 2, 2012 Author Share Posted May 2, 2012 quite right, i cant really think why i wanted to do this again. i think it was just because i had the all in one open at the back and could see portential and i miss having a real tower pc. my misses just doesnt get why i should build a new tower over having an all in one. admitedly my all in one is probably one of the best looking mac clones and sertainly does a good job of web browsing and gaming on med graphics. suprisingly plucky little graphics card in there. i just wish i coulld get the bloody thing to boot lion without a black screen. i already have one hackentosh but it is very addictive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonestonne Posted May 7, 2012 Share Posted May 7, 2012 I know that the PSUs in these systems are horribly designed, but the heat is the more important factor in these systems. While the 2310 is fairly well designed, it uses basically oversized laptop cooling components. The Dell XPS One system that was sold about 2-3 years ago was the worst offender, Dell actually refused to send out review samples to certain places because they were known for looking into the heating issues of other computers. Adding even a 2.5" drive would increase the heat, and decrease the airflow space that's essential to keeping those all in one computers running. That said, even the iMacs aren't perfect, but they are better than all of the other all in one computers I've seen. The HP TouchSmart computers are probably the best I've seen, but they all do have this serious problem. I would argue that if the misses likes the idea of an all in one, you could compromize with a nice touchscreen paired with an ITX based machine VESA mounted on the back (Cooler Master Elite 100 has this option). Although, a system like that might seem too much like some point of sale computers haha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acro_Design Posted May 7, 2012 Author Share Posted May 7, 2012 Indeed, i made a micro itx tiny little pc for her sister, its well... {censored} really. probably because i didnt want to spend a lot of money. but seriously i had to pack it full of fans to keep it cool. I once had an xpc shuttle micro atx and that was such a cool machine, it could handle games too because it had a real graphics card, i do not remember what it was. that should be a good option for me, the thing is, she has a eeepc i have the dell and a hackintosh acer, none of these machines are what you might cool powerful, well they are to the average user, but i have this itch i need to scratch, perhaps if i invest in a few bits over the rest of the year and sell it on once its built that might satisfy me. fun fact, i converted my misses to ubuntu ha ha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonestonne Posted May 8, 2012 Share Posted May 8, 2012 Congrats on that convert! Tough thing to do, but well worth it! I'd say if you're going to stick in a second drive, you should be careful about it. Don't look for speed in this, meaning, opt for a 5400RPM drive, laptop drives do not have "Green" models, just 5400 and 7200RPM models. If the inside of the back panel of that Dell is flat, you should use some sort of heat conducting material to attach the drive to the back panel with. That will help you reduce as much heat as possible. You're going to want the breathing room to be between the drive and motherboard, make sure the label side of the drive is attached to the back panel of the dell, that's what will give you optimal heat transfer. The PCI-e SATA adapter is probably your best bet in that regard, and using a 5400RPM drive will keep the power usage to a minimum. If I had to guess (I'm feeling a bit lazy right now), I would guess that Dell has a 210W or a maximum of 300W power supply inside. From what I can find, it's an i5 based system, with a 1TB drive (might be a Green model, if not, it's a standard 7200RPM). The base system alone is going to pull about 70-110W before it goes under load, so you don't have a lot of room to add much in the way of power. You can use a KillAWatt unit to guestimate the amount of power you have to spare, by comparing the peak output of the PSU with the idle, and load wattage, and figuring what kind of "buffer room" you have. It probably wont be much at all, maybe 20-30W to play with, but increasing the load with that second drive (even though it will be a small load) will play a role in how the PSU acts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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