Looking for Tech Details reguarding powering 6 Hard Drives on 1 Power Lead

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Vapor1000

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 8, 2004
Messages
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I will start off by saying i have scouted these fourms as best i could and this link below is the most relevent to the topic i could find
how many HDD is too many for one lead?

However the topic most people are covering in that thread isn't really the issue at hand.
The people in the thread are arguing that the fact that it is 430W is the limiting factor. When most of us should already know any good 430w psu is way more than enough power to handle 6 drives unless you’re running something along the lines of a Radeon 5870 in the machine as well.

Here are the facts I have at hand. I have available 30 Amps available on my 5v line. 60 Amps available on my 12v Line. And 24 Amps Available on my 3.3v Line (even though I don’t bereave SATA Drives are even utilizing the 3.3v line yet).
I know I have plenty of power to handle the drives.
My question is in the wire itself.
What is going to be my limiting factor (and how many drives can I handle before I hit that limiting factor) for 1 run of 5 SATA Power Wires (1x12v, 1x5v, 2xGround, 1x3.3v all 18 Gauge Wire) before I run into too much Wire heat/noise on the line/etc?

The Drives I am looking at powering in a series of 6 are as follows
3x Samsung 2.0TB 3 Platter 5400RPM Drives
2x Samsung 1.5TB 3 Platter 5400RPM Drives
1x Western Digital 1.5TB Black 3 Platter 7200RPM Drive

Does anyone have any solid information behind this issue?
or possibly a link to their source for this type of information?
 
I can't answer your question but I have been running 7 (4x1tb RE3 and 3 1.5tb seagates) for almost two years now off one molex without issue.
 
thats reassuring at least. while i would like to know some form of measurement of how to judge it for when i need more than 6 drives (if that were ever to happen)
that at least gives me a little of the peace of mind i needed to go ahead with a 6 drive chain :)

anyone else feel free to post your thoughts on the subject. i will be checking back :)
 
I've been running up to 9 drives for the past couple of years. In the beginning it was 1 rail with molex splitters and now I have upgraded most drives to sata and I was using molex to sata adapters.
I "think" my current setup uses almost all native SATA cables from the Antec 650 PSU I have.

this pic was almost 2 years ago,
drives.jpg
 
on a 18awg line, the maximum recommended amperage is 16amps:

http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm

Calculate and/or measure the total current draw per wire for your hard drives and see if it'll exceed 16 amps. You should be fine, but I haven't looked up the power usage of your drives since you didn't provide specific model numbers. The rating is conservative, but better safe than sorry imo.
 
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