I bought a refurbished Lenovo M720s computer last summer to use as a homelab at my house. I loaded True Nas onto the internal SSD and swapped out the HDD drive that came with it for a 10tb drive. I also threw a 500gb drive in the M.2 slot to use for applications with True Nas.
All has been fine up to now. Recently though I aquired a 8tb HDD for cheap and figured I would throw it into the homelab for some extra storage. There was a extra Sata connector free on the motherboard anyway. I put in the drive and connect it, but then I realize that there is not another Sata power connector I can use for this drive. This computer makes you connect power to the drives from the motherboard and not the power supply.
So I am at a bit of a roadblock. I know I am pushing the capabilities of this little machine, but it seems silly that they give you 3 Sata ports but only 2 power ports for Sata drives. I guess they were probably intending for one of those ports to just be used for a DVD drive.
I went to a local computer store and they were not very helpful. I asked if I could use a splitter for the power port and they said I would fry my board.
Anyone know any solutions to this? I just need a way to power one more HDD. I will link the manual to the computer so it is easier to see what I am looking at.
Also a good point. Speaking of, that generation Optiplex SFF had a 300W PSU as an option in the XE3 variant (basically a 7050 meant for point-of-sale use) vs the stock 180W PSU. It’s plug-and-play, too. One of my Proxmox nodes runs a 7050 SFF with that PSU. It’s rock solid.