[Hack Job] Dell Optiplex 7050 SFF - How to add a 2nd 3.5-inch HDD

saltwater

saltwater

Getting comfortable
Oct 6, 2019
503
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Melbourne, Australia
I am building a second Blue Iris machine for my daughter's new house. I've got a Dell Optiplex 7050, 256GB SSD, and a WD Purple 18TB harddrive. (Actually, this will be my machine and I'll hand over my existing HP Prodesk, 8TB WD Purple, to my daughter.) Anyway, there is an option to add a second 2.5 inch harddrive (I'm going by this Youtube help guide) that replaces the existing DVD/CD drive.

Are there any negative factors to be considered in adding a 2.5-inch drive, for surveillance purposes?

My current system (8TB drive, using 7TB for BI) with 13 cameras (all but one are 5442's) I get around 8 days of recording. I've estimated that with the 18TB drive I should get around 18 days of recording. If I add a second harddrive, I wouldn't mind getting to around 21+ days of recording.
 
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Many folks use non-surveillance rate drives for BI video with no problems. But there are some drive versions that have inherent issues when you try and review video as other video is being recorded. @Flintstone61 has experience on this and probably can give his point of view.

I have not tried a 2.5" drive for BI video. I fully believe in continuous recording. I have 22 cams writing to three 10TB WD purples and have never had any issues reviewing video, scrubbing, etc has never had a problem. But I would not chance using non-surveillance rate drives in my BI server.
 
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The issue isn't if the 2.5" is durable. Sure they are durable. And sure some here have used them with no problem for their cameras. But they really aren't designed for 24/7 operation.

And some have found they can't keep up with the 24/7 constantly writing needs of surveillance cameras.

We had a member here about a year ago had an 11th gen that the CPU was pegging at 100%. It was the 2.5" drive couldn't keep up. When he replaced it with surveillance grade his CPU dropped to single digits.

The fact of the matter is the 7050SFF has the room for a 3.5" drive. Maybe it isn't in a proper cage or whatever, but we are not carrying this computer around so duct tape it inside and move on.
 
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Ok, so now I'm looking at installing a second 3.5 inch drive, a third if power requirements are suitable.

My first problem is that the power lead to the Optical drive is only a 2-wire lead, whereas the 3.5-inch drive the power lead is a 5-wire lead. I've checked the power lead from the motherboard (image attached) and I notice that the red wire has been spliced in two from the source end or plug end. The black wire is not spliced and runs directly into the 6-wire plug. So, both the 3.5-inch and Optical drive have their own black wire from the plug. Am I correct that if I obtain another 3.5-inch plug (5-wire lead) I merely splice into the existing wires, colour for colour? For the red & black leads I would merely use the existing red & black leads from the Optical drive, no need to splice.

If I consider a third 3.5-inch drive, for the black wire, would I also merely splice into one of the black wires from the plug?

I'm thinking of three drives as on the motherboard there are three SATA ports. Would there be enough power to power three drives.

What are these leads, plugs called so I can purchase from either Ebay or Amazon?

ps. I'll follow-up later with best way to hack an install, this early stage I'm thinking externally, drilling a hole through the lid and then mounting on the lid, duck tape as suggested earlier.

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the Power circuit on the board may not provide 3 drives with enough power, since it wasnt designed to do that might be a gamble.
start with 2 maybe and research the power situation.

www.ebay.com

For Dell Optiplex 3050 5050 7050 Mini Tower HDD sata power cable P/N 09VWT | eBay

MPN : 09VWT. New Hard Drive Disk HDD Cable for Dell Latitude E7440 DC02C006Q00 DC02C004K00. for HP Hard Drive HDD Connector & Cable 50.4SU16.031 Pavilion DV6-7000 DV7-7000. Hard Drive Connector Cable for DELL Inspiron 7000 7460 7560 3451 5758 7472 8FG2F.
www.ebay.com
 
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dont chop wires, you can get a factory one at link on ebay....
 
The 7050 Dell should have an option to use an M.2 NVME drive on the motherfboard. this would free up the other space to use a 3.5" HDD if you take the 2.5 adapter out of that bay. I beleive.
 
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You can get more than 18 days of recording with 13 cams, if you can slow the data onto the drive a bit more. like use Substreams where you can, and drop the FPS on cams where can afford to.
I'm seeing where i can go back to December 2022 on my 8 TB drive. with 9 cams with 5-5MP cams 2 4MP cams and 2-2MP cams.
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My 20 cam system at the condo goes 5 weeks on 14 TB of storage.
(edit)-13 Tb of storage
 
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Flintstone61 said:
The 7050 Dell should have an option to use an M.2 NVME drive on the motherfboard. this would free up the other space to use a 3.5" HDD if you take the 2.5 adapter out of that bay. I believe.
Click to expand...
Yep, I already have the M.2 chip, 256GB. Even removing the Optical drive, I can't see where I could easily 'duct tape' a second 3.5-inch drive inside the unit. My original question was in relation to using a 2.5-inch drive, as a second drive to my 3.5-inch drive, for surveillance purposes but then it was suggested it might not be a good idea, why not just use a second 3.5-inch drive and be creative with installation.

Thanks for the follow-up posts with the manual.
 
Flintstone61 said:
You can get more than 18 days of recording with 13 cams, if you can slow the data onto the drive a bit more. like use Substreams where you can, and drop the FPS on cams where can afford to.
I'm seeing where i can go back to December 2022 on my 8 TB drive. with 9 cams with 5-5MP cams 2 4MP cams and 2-2MP cams.
View attachment 156614
Click to expand...
Yes, thanks for the info. I do in fact have some cams that are not overly critical, and they are all at the back of my house. I haven't yet needed to check or investigate further any activity at the back of my house. Actually, over two years, I've only had a couple of suspicious things occur at the front of the house but not related to me. My fear is, I'd hate to record something knowing it could have been recorded at quality and then it happens to become important footage. But, yes, my back yard cams would be the first to be downgraded if I wanted more days on my 8TB drive.
 
Flintstone61 said:
the Power circuit on the board may not provide 3 drives with enough power, since it wasnt designed to do that might be a gamble.
start with 2 maybe and research the power situation.

www.ebay.com

For Dell Optiplex 3050 5050 7050 Mini Tower HDD sata power cable P/N 09VWT | eBay

MPN : 09VWT. New Hard Drive Disk HDD Cable for Dell Latitude E7440 DC02C006Q00 DC02C004K00. for HP Hard Drive HDD Connector & Cable 50.4SU16.031 Pavilion DV6-7000 DV7-7000. Hard Drive Connector Cable for DELL Inspiron 7000 7460 7560 3451 5758 7472 8FG2F.
www.ebay.com
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link, I followed it and then checked others. What my concern now is, I think, and I could be wrong, but my plug to the motherboard is a 6-pin plug and the associated power plug for the 7050 mini-tower are 8-pin. My motherboard photo above shows the vacant 6-pin slot. I'll research further, get the manual for the 7050 mini-tower and tower (if there is one) and check there. As I said, I could be wrong, it's just that in other Ebay links for equivalent products I noticed 8-pin plugs.
 
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I changed the thread title from "Dell Optiplex 7050 SFF - 2nd 2.5-inch harddrive" to "[Hack Job] Dell Optiplex 7050 SFF - How to add a 2nd 3.5-inch HDD". It now better represents the course of the thread.
 
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BUmmer on the Pinout being different. back to creative wire management I guess. maybe one from a previous model might have it. like a 9020 SFF or something.
 
6pin sized connector, although its only using 5. that and it has the idiot-proof plug design with funny shaped plastic.
www.ebay.com

Dell Optiplex MT 9020 7020 Precision 3620 T1700 SATA 5 Pin Power Cable CR9TD | eBay

Genuine Dell Optiplex MT 7020 9020 Precision 3620 T1700 SATA power cable. may fit other Dell models. motherboard connector is 5 pin - see photo. cable as shown - nothing else is included. Great PC, the 2nd I've bought from him!
www.ebay.com
 
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