The Asrock N100DC-ITX uses a 19v power brick so no separate PSU to power the drives. It comes with a 4 pin cable that splits into 2 SATA power.

The case I chose, Silverstone SG13, comes with a 3.5" HDD bracket but you need to mount the drive belly up so you can screw it in. The second drive I want to put where the PCIe slot is, found a nice 3d model for that. The thing is, the power cable would be too short and the drives would be too far apart to reach both.

So I removed the HDD bracket and cut 2 L-shaped aluminum stripes and I screwed the drive belly down. This way the cable now reaches both drives. I know, I could have cut the cable and made it longer but I prefer to avoid playing with power cables if I can.

Turned out quite good. Wanted to share it with other people. Now I need to find someone to 3d print the PCIe HDD holder and find some rubber stuff to put under the L-shapes to dampen the sound of the drive. This is the 3d model, https://www.printables.com/model/385403-pci-slot-hdd-bracket but V2 with the nice feet.

PS the drives in the images are broken so I just used them as dummy drives.

That’s about it.

  • OrangeCorvus@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    Thanks for the tip! For some reason I was searching for a similar but longer cable to the one provided but never thought to look for a SATA power extender :).

    I’ve heard about avoiding the injection molded ones but I wanted to ask you, is it safe to power the 2 drives directly from the motherboard? The board has 2 SATA ports and the cable that comes with has 2 power SATA connectors so it should not overheat/burn the cables if they give you the option to use it? This is the board https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/N100DC-ITX/#Specification

    I live in a constant fear of batteries catching fire, cables melting and other bad things happening when it comes to power :). That’s why I tend to only buy original batteries, cables, power adapters.

    • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If that’s the stock part, seems like it would be within spec. You can check the manual or detailed spec doc to be sure.