HP Z2 Tower G1i Workstation Installation

[dryodryo]

I am constrained by price points. This workstation was the best one that I could afford. It is important for buyers to know what they are buying. I spec'd out the workstation that I needed. I'm not an IT professional, but I have built PCs before.

The thing is, there is no way I could have known that a SATA power cable designed for a PSU would not work with the SATA power header on the HP motherboard. If standards change and improve, that's great, but there's a huge gap between what IT professionals know and what end users know. Even advanced end users are going to get bitten when standards change.

So if this new ATX12VO power standard is the basis for the HP motherboard power, is the SATA power header also standardized? Is there a name for the type of SATA power cable that is compatible with ATX12VO, as opposed to a SATA power cable that is compatible with PSUs?

Or is the HP SATA power cable proprietary? I saw in some Dell forums that various models have different pinouts. Is that the case for HP also? I ordered a cable from eBay that was pulled from a Z2 workstation, but it was not the exact same model. Do all of the Z2 workstations use the same cable?

I have some experience with electronics, but I am not confident that I can test live voltages on a PC. First I would need to figure out what voltages are supposed to show up on which pins of the hard drive connector. Then I would need to very carefully test every one of the 15 pins, being certain not to short anything. My hands are not as steady as they used to be, and I am not willing to take the risk.

[janclaeys]

 

[dryodryo]

Thanks for trying, but that didn't help.

The cable kit is out of stock or unavailable in any store I could find as of December 15, 2025.

The photo of the molex connector is out of focus, so it's not possible to determine the pattern of keying, i.e. which corners of the insulating sheaths are beveled. 

And it's also not possible to determine the pin configuration from these photos.

Basically HP doesn't want us to upgrade anything, they make it as difficult as possible to even know what parts to order.

[DGroves]

if you are talking about the 6 pin molex connector i'm fairly sure that is not used for powering SATA devices

Edit: this appears to be wrong this model system does appear to use 6 instead of a 4 pin molex connector

please read the HP docs on your system model you may find what you are needing to know in those doc files

edit: on closer inspection of the provided picture it does appear that this system uses a 6pin rather than the more common 4pin molex motherboard connector to provide power to two sata drive connectors

do you see where a 6-pin socket on the motherboard is, possibly with the text :SATA PWR" next to it

i believe the HP ProDesk 600 G4 600 G5 400 G4 400 G5 G9 SFF MT desktop 6 pin to SATA Hard Drive cable Connector uses the same pinout as your system which is 3 connectors on one side of the molex connector are +12 and the other 3 are ground

[dryodryo]

I appreciate you trying to help, but please check your facts before posting.

The 6-pin Molex connector is very common for SATA power.

The HP motherboard has a 6-pin Molex header clearly labeled "SATA".

The 6-pin header on the HP motherboard is keyed differently to a standard SATA power cable Molex connector.

[janclaeys]

For SATA power, HP uses only 4 of the 6 available pins. I will try to post a much better photo of the connector this weekend. 

[dryodryo]

OK, after 90 minutes on the phone with HP, I got confirmation that this is the SATA power cable for a Z2 Tower G1i

P27732-001

They said that the L22273-001 part was almost certainly not the same thing, because it's very old.

But shockingly, even the actual tech person did not have all of the information to answer my questions about GPU upgrades. Had to escalate it to Level 2 support, waiting to hear back.

[mdsmaxmax]

I'm in somewhat the same position as you, needing to install an SSD only. There are good answers here for finding the power cable, but I don't see where to plug it in on the PC side. It sounds like you know that part. Can you point me to where I can find the answer?  (a hint where to look on the motherboard and how it's labled might be enough.)

[SDH]

HP sure did not do a good job of this in the main manual for this semi-workstation. Not a peep about where to specifically attach that option part number cable to feed power out to one or two SATA HDDs or SATA SSDs. From the bit blurry pic in the appreciated post above only 4 of the 6-hole plug end are populated by metal contacts. This is like the old 4-pin Molex plugs having 4 total populated holes but feeding to the SATA power plug end. The SATA data cable looks like it is nothing special... common SATA III one should work fine. Which is which contact is not covered below, but this answer does add one more puzzle piece as solved:

Pics are from the main manual from HP... easy to find. In there are motherboard pictures. The top one specifically shows the "five" motherboard headers to plug in 5 cables from the power supply. Remember that there likely will also be 1 or maybe 2 supplemental PCIe power cables coming out of the power supply also. The plug end or ends are usually parked into the plastic of the bottom front case fan black plastic housing.

Bottom pic shows #11... where that SATA power adapter cable plugs into the motherboard... 6 holes but only 4 of the six are used...

5 MB power-in ports... #11 is power out#11 is the SATA power-out port from MB

Someone should contact modDIY.com over in China and notify them of this much-in-demand HP adapter cable. They do a great job on these things as DGroves and I know from personal experience with them over the years.

[mdsmaxmax]

Thanks much. That's page 64 in the PDF in case anyone's looking for the original. (Your description was good enough that I found it in the PDF file just from the text-only email the site sent me.) 

Now if only someone here can find a good source for the cable...