How to add second HD to HP 500B Microtower

[VGC]

How can I add a second HD to my HP 500B Microtower? I have not been able to find a bracket online and I do not see the ribbon cable I would expect to see for this purpose inside the case.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thank you

[wb2001]

Quick answer is NO.

That system only comes with a single 3.5" bay. The drive is SATA (different cabling).  It does not have the familiar EIDE flat ribbon cable. It only supports 1 hard drive and 1 optical drive via separate SATA cabling.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06b/12454-12454-64287-321860-3328893-4191793-4191794-43277...

manual: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13724_na/13724_na.pdf

[Big_Dave]

Hi VGC,

You could add an external USB drive as an option.

Another option since the motherboard in your PC has 4 sata ports is to consider extending a sata port to the I/O back panel using this part  if a spot is open. Then use an external esata hard drive.  The external esata hard drive will look just like an internal connected sata hard drive to the motherboard and the operating system.

[artfd]

     Cables for SATA drives are entirely different than those needed for the old IDE/ATA type drives.     Search Google images for 'SATA data power cables' to get a list of images to illustrate the cables necessary to add one or 2 more HDD's to your machine.   SATA drives can be attached by a combination data power cable or by 2 cables, one for data (small) and one for power (large).

    I read the HTML 'Quickspecs' for the HP 500B.  The MoBo has 4 SATA connectors on it.  Only 2 of them should have SATA cables plugged in. One cable should connect to your optical disk drive (ODD) and the other to the hard disk drive (HDD).  That should leave 2 open SATA connectors, therefore you should be able to attach cables to 2 more SATA HDD's.

     The mere absence of brackets to hold extra HDDs should not deter you.   I have a 505B, which is pretty similar to your 500B.  The 505B has a completely EMPTY 5 1/4" bracket below the ODD.   You can easily buy adapter brackets ($2) to bolt in a 3.5" SATA HDD into the much larger slot.   If you want to add a 3rd HDD, you would have to get creative to bolt the HDD to the inside of your case, since the mounting hardware is not there for it.

   At the moment, I am not aware of how many SATA power connections your machine has.  Once you know what they look like, you will recognize them at a glance as soon as you take the hood off your case.    My 505B has many of the old 4-pole IDE type connectors, although they are not needed in the 505B.   You can buy SATA / IDE power adapters to add extra power points to supply extra HDD's.   Google image 'IDE SATA power' to get my picture.

      At the moment my 505B has 3 HDD's in it.  2 are simply lying on the bottom of the case, these HDDs are from other computers I use, and I plugged them in to back them up to a 1.5TB HDD I have in the 505B.

      I also have another way to connect SATA HDDs, a PCI card that creates a new eSATA port on the outside of the machine.    I haven't got the power for an external SATA HDD set up yet, once I do I will be able to attach an external SATA HDD and keep the hood of my 505B closed.

[artfd]

Be advised that SATA cables are generally used inside computer cases to hook DDs to your MoBo.  "eSATA" cables are generally used outside of the cases to hook external SATA disk enclosures to the outside eSATA ports on the computers which have them.   It is possible to buy cables with SATA connectors on one end and eSATA connectors on the other.

     Some computers, usually laptops, have combination ports, which will accept either a USB 2.0 cable or an eSATA cable.   

[artfd]

Sample bracket adapter to fit a 3.5" HDD into a 5.25" HDD bracket here.

[VGC]

Thanks for all the good info. I don't know if my drive is a SATA drive - it's a Western Digital WD3200AAJB WD Caviar SE. I looked on Google and couldn't find the answer.

In the computer I removed it from it was connected with a 2-3/4 inch wide ribbon cable.

Thnank you!

[artfd]

•   I just did a Google search for "WD3200AAJB"
• The first hit was a Newegg product listing
• The Newegg description was "Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJB 320GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive"

• The phrase "IDE Ultra ATA100 / ATA-6" means it is NOT a SATA drive.  This is an older design which goes by several other names, such as "PATA" or "parallel ATA" to distinguish it from "SATA" or "serial ATA"
  
• The other clue was the width of the cable connecting the drive to the motherboard.  SATA & eSATA data cables have a much smaller cross section, unless they are combined with the SATA power cable.  Once you have seen SATA, eSATA and SATA power cables and the sockets for them on motherboards and HDD's, you will recognize them at a glance.
• Alse see "Serial ATA" on Wikipedia for more than you ever wanted to know on the subject.