Yikes! No 3.5" HDD slot. Options?

badutahboy

badutahboy

n3wb
Mar 3, 2018
10
0
Hi all,

So I just ordered a 4TB WD Purple Drive for my cameras, and went to install it in my machine, only to realize there's only 1 3.5" slot, which is currently occupied by the system drive.

The system has 2 available 2.5" drive slots, and it has an M.2 slot which currently has an Intel Optane memory stick in it.

My primary curiousity is if I can install my Purple drive into a caddy and use it as an external USB drive effectively, or if transfer speeds will be too slow?

My other alternative would be to replace the primary drive with either an M.2 or 2.5" SSD. I know that's the ideal route, but it's less than ideal just because of cost (2TB M.2 drive costs $200-300 vs <$50 for a caddy.

Any input?
 
Whoaru99 said:
250GB Crucial SSDs are recently selling for $50 on Amazon.


250GB is way plenty for the OS drive for a BI box, then put the Purple in the 3.5 " place.
Click to expand...

250GB doesn't covermy needs unfortunately. I also use this computer as my home media server and central document storage. I probably don't need a 2TB drive, but I definitely need at least 1.

I could, however, drop a 250-500 GB M.2 Drive into it for about $70-80 and add a 2.5" 2TB spinner for the other stuff, and be done for under $150. That's a bit more palatable than spending $300 on a 2TB M.2 drive.
 
Whoaru99 said:
Perhaps you already know but it is generally recommended to run BI on a standalone box.
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I'm aware. I think my machine has enough overhead to handle both functions, but if I need to split them up, I will. My machine has an I7-7700 and 32GB of RAM, and with it running just my media server (in a virtual environment), I'm usually using under 10% CPU and 30% RAM.
 
It's really not about how big your machine is. If you care about security and believe your cams and BI are an important part of that security plan that must be reliable 24/7, then dedicate a pc to the job.
If you don't, you run the risk of missing something important. If you don't care about security then game on it or whatever.

But I am sure yours is very big.
 
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Do you have 5.25" space available (for optical drives)? If so, you can get 5.25" to 3.5" adapter.

I would still go for a SSD system drive.
 
Last edited:
polaris said:
Do you have 5.25" space available (for optical drives)? If so, you can get 5.25" to 3.5" adapter.

I would still go for a SSD system drive.
Click to expand...

I don't. Just 2 2.5" drives. I have a 2.5" 256GB SSD sitting around in a laptop I decommissioned last year, so I think I'm going to make it the system drive for now, put my purple inside the box to replace the current 3.5" drive, and put the current 2TB drive into an enclosure.
 
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