Add third hard drive on HPE 510t?

[SoundSeven]

I have a new HPE 510t with i7 2600 cpu and 2 internal hard drives. I want to add a third hard drive to my system, but there are no more hd bays inside the box. This third drive would not be for backups, but for streaming audio vsts for music recording and mixing. So it needs to be as fast as a normal internal HD at 7200 rpm, 150 mb/sec etc.

Can I use one of the 5.25 media bays in the front of the box for adding a new hard drive? Would this give me the same data speed as an internal drive? If this won't work, can I get an external hard drive that works on eSata and add a card for eSata?

I do have USB 3.0 ports on the front of this PC -- can this work for an external hd that would meet my needs?

Thanks for any insights!

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

I doubt whether an internal 7200 RPM hard drive would be able to sustain 150 MB/sec.  You might be able to get a 7200 RPM hard drive to sustain beween 85-100 MB/sec.  A 7200 RPM hybrid hard drive would perform much better for reads and about the same for writes.

Yes you can install an internal 3.5" 7200 RPM hard drive into an empty 5.25" optical bay by using a bay hard drive adapter. This is an example of such an adapter.

These are the motherboard specifications for your PC.  I don't see any esata ports available on the back.  You could extend a motherboard sata port to the back I/O but it wouldn't be any faster than installing an internal sata drive into an empty optical bay.

I don't think your PC has any USB 3.0 ports in the front unless you installed something to provide that support.  The HP Store doesn't show USB 3.0 as an option for the HPE-510t.  Here is a review for USB 3.0 hard drives from PC World Magazine.  You really need to use solid state technology to get USB 3.0 to perform.

Adding a third internal hard drive in the empty optical bay would be as fast as your current hard drives.  If you want more speed then you might want to consider using a RAID 0 configuration for 2 of the 3 hard drives.

BTW, the Intel "sandybridge" chips are supposed to be extremely fast at video transcoding. I'll know more about this capability in the next few days once I get my new PC built.

[SoundSeven]

Thanks Big_Dave! Oops ... I should have said mbps not MB.

It sounds like the empty optical bay drive and adapter is the way to go. Do I need to do anything to connect to the motherboard or just install a new hd in the bay? Also, the power unit is 300 W -- will I have trouble with adding the external drive in the optical bay -- either too little power or too much heat on the drive?

There are 3.0 usb ports on this one in the front, I had installed as an option for this configurable unit. It doesn't show on the main specs but HP was offering it for awhile as an option. I got it, not sure what I'll use it for. No Firewire or eSata on mine though.

Good luck with your new build, hope you'll post the results!

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

Look inside your PC by the empty optical bay and see if there is an open sata power connector.  The HPE models seem to have some spare power connectors inside.  You will also need a sata data cable like the ones going to the hard drives.  Don't forget to buy the drive adapter. The 300 watt power supply should be sufficient for power.

I will have some benchmarking to do with the new PC. The two hard drives and the Vertex SSD will be sata III.  I may RAID 0 the hard drives.

[SoundSeven]

That is going to be a very fast unit. Are you using the 2600k? Will you OC? The RAID would be very fast too, but I've heard could be risky for data loss.

BTW can I use sata III for my project in the drive bay? SSD is a bit pricey for me at this point, but a fast sata hd is what I'm going for.

[Big_Dave]

Hi,

Yes RAID 0 is a bit risky.  If you take frequent backups then the risk may be worth the reward.

It's going to be an Intel 2600k, ASUS P8P67 motherboard with Corsair 1600 dimms.  I'll be using a mid-size cabinet with USB 3.0 in front. I am also adding a memory card reader with a eSATA port. I haven't decided on a video card yet so I'll probably use either the NVIDIA 8600 (spare)  or pull the GT 240 out of my m9200t system. I will be pulling the BD drive out of the m9200t system.

Yes you can use a SATA III SSD  in the optical drive bay but you'll need a 2.5" to 5.25" adapter.  You might even be able to get the 2.5" SSD to fit inside the bay just below the lower optical drive bay. On some models this is the pocket media drive bay. You can remove the front cover and do some measuring and see if a 2.5" or 3.5" device will work depending on your needs. Even though your PC might not have the pocket media drive bay, it may still exist behind the front cover. It doesn't hurt to look.

The Crucial C300 128 MB SATA III SSD that I have been using in various PCs sustained 214 MB/s in a SATA II mobo on my HP e9280t system.  I might pull the C300 temporarily from my laptop and benchmark it on the new PC.  I'll probably keep the Crucial C300 for laptop use.  I don't like slow boot ups.

[SoundSeven · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your help with this. I might look into the SSD. My HP does have a pocket media bay too.

The 2600k you're building will rock! The Asus P67 mobo and Corsair RAM are perfect for that procesor. I'll check back to see how it turns out.

[butlerwm]

Hey,

I know you already found a solution for your problem, but I just wanted to add how I solved the same problem with my 510t. I also have the Core i7 2600 but didn't get the "k" because I don't do overcooking. For me, I wanted an external SATA drive with the same specs as the internal drive so I simply added an eSATA adapter (plugs into the onboard eSATA ports) and dropped a SATA drive into an eSATA external enclosure. Since it has its own power supply, it doesn't draw from the PC's and thus doesn't take away from the (limited) 300w capability of the system. Additionally, since it connects to the eSATA bus, I have the option of connecting additional operating systems and the computer sees it as if it were installed internally. Lastly, even USB 3.0 doesn't provide the same data through-put as SATA.

Hope that helps.

[Big_Dave]

Hi Buloterwm,

Please verify that the eSATA port on your HPE-510t will support a boot device.  Most HP PCs don't enable the eSATA ports as eligible boot devices.  I reason I ask this question is that I have three HP PCs and none of them will support an eSATA port as a boot device.