Hello Guys,
I have a basic configuration since 1 year now with my HL15 : 4 molex cables to the PCB that power fans & backplane. Works perfectly since 1 year.
I want to setup something special for a project and i need to power the backplane with DC power. I was wondering if i can power directly without the PCB the backplane using a pico PSU that can provide in output the 24 pin connector or the 24 pin from an HDPLEX 500W HiFi DC-ATX that is meant for powering a motherboard. Is it a compatible connector or the 24 pin from 45drives is kind of special ?
Thanks a lot for your help
You should familiarize yourself with the pin diagrams of the 24-pin ATX connector and the 4-pin molex.
The Power Distribution Board is just basically a hub that collects +5V and +12V typically from multiple PATA/SATA ports on the PSU and distributes it back out for the fans and backplane via the 20-pin connector. That connector just has various +5V, +12V and ground pins. It’s not a motherboard ATX connector. The reason there are multiple pins/wires is that each wire can only handle a certain amount of amps, and 15 drives pull a lot more amps than one wire can handle.
So, you need something like the breakout board you found, which, presumably, only connects pins 10 and 11 through to the +12V of its molex connectors and pins 4,6,21,22,23 through to the +5V of its molex connectors.
How many drives are you expecting to put in the backplane, and are they spinning drives or SSDs? +5V mainly is used by electronics, +12V by motors. I’d be concerned if you were going to try to run more than 8 spinning drives off of this setup as all of the +12V current is going to come through only two wires from the PSU.
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For anyone interested in this thread, here is what I think is the same board available through Amazon US in English;
In the specs here they claim;
How many hard drives can be connected to a single power supply depends on your 5V current upper limit.(If 5V outputs 15A, you can bring 30 disks.)
For 16 € it seems like it’s worth a try, but I’d still be a bit cautious before committing data or drives you don’t want to lose. I’m not an EE, but I still think for mechanical drives there is also a limit on the number of drives supported based on the gauge of the +12V wire used for the ATX connector. But, I could be wrong. Not sure I’d trust the Amazon reviews, not many of them seemed genuine.
Totally make sense… thank you guys for your help
