Run 2 Power Supplies or What?

[NightCap]

I want to run 4 more harddrives in my server. I have a raid card but need more power connectors for the drives. First: if I do power dividers off the existing power supply leads will it be too much for my upper end 400 watt supply if so.... can you add a second power supply that does not have the mother board connectors? Don't know if I have seen one of those. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[Ike0069]

What are the rest of your system specs and what exact PSU do you have?

 

[footbal07]

if you want to use 2 atx powersupplies you have to rig the second one so that the mobo supplies power to turn it on along with your main psu, or you could get a at powersupply. if it was me i would go and buy a decent psu that could handle all my components and save myself the trouble.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

When I got a little worried that my enermax 350watt wasn't going to handle 5 hard drives and a bunch of thermaltake smart case fan IIs, I hooked up an old AT powersupply too.

It has a switch built right into it so you don't need to have it connected to a motherboard to turn on. I have it powering all my fans to take a bit of the load off my main powersupply.

 

[NightCap]

Originally posted by: Ike0069
What are the rest of your system specs and what exact PSU do you have?

I Have a Intel Pentium 4 with 1 gig of ram. I am using a Super ATX Tower Case with a Fortron ATX 400W power supply. I have two cd drives one a fast cd burner and the other a dvd burner. and two hard drives.

Some good info from you all. Thanks. I'm going shopping for another powersupply.

 

[Ike0069]

It doesn't sound like you need another PSU. Fortron PSU's are solid and should be able top ahndle that system.
Although you didn't mention the CPU speed, VC, or if you OC.

 

[NightCap]

Originally posted by: Ike0069
It doesn't sound like you need another PSU. Fortron PSU's are solid and should be able top ahndle that system.
Although you didn't mention the CPU speed, VC, or if you OC.

Sorry. It is a 3 GHZ Pentium and Thanks.

 

[Zepper]

Six hard drives starting at once could pull 12 or more Amps at startup. So it makes sense to get another small PSU and let it take care of some of the drives and other peripherals. Make sure that the two PSU chassis are bonded together well (I would use a heavy piece of wire with eyelet connectors on the ends - but just screwed tightly to the case metal would probably do) so that the Grounds don't float.

.bh.

Here, have a :beer: ! My Berserker's here - Yahoo!

:moon:

 

[imported_Kensai]

Well, you could just get a Tt 680W purepower or a PC Power & Cooling 850W (If you could afford it because I sure can't.)

 

[Ike0069]

OK, I'm an idiot. I must have just completely skipped the first sentence. I didn't realize this was a server.😱

 

[ribbon13]

Originally posted by: Kensai
Well, you could just get a Tt 680W purepower or a PC Power & Cooling 850W (If you could afford it because I sure can't.)

And do you happen to know exactly what one costs? I do.