Searching for a cable for a dual PSU setup

[biker4mac]

I picked up a Sewell Multi Power Supply Adapter for a second power supply setup.

Unfortunately, I’m now trying to figure out how best to get a 4-pin Molex to supply it. Probably the cleanest would be a Mini 6-pin to 4-pin Molex to supply the power from one of the (now unused) graphics card power supplies on the Mac Pro motherboard - except that I haven’t been able to find that such a thing exists.

Next thought would be to tap into the SATA cables for the optical drives - except, again, I’m not sure that a SATA to 4-pin Molex exists… They have 4-pin Molex to SATA, though.

It’s looking like picking up the connectors and wiring something up myself is going to be my only option.

The specs:

• 3.46 12-core Westmere Mac Pro
• 64Gb RAM - 8 x 8Gb 1333Mhz ECC Memory
• 480Gb SSD SATA 6Gb/s, 3Gb/s & 1.5Gb/s supported, SATA 3.0 Compliant
• (2) 2Tb 3.5-Inch SATA 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM 64MB Cache Hard Drives
• EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 80+ GOLD Externally Mounted Power Supply (for graphics cards)
• Sewell Multi Power Supply Adapter
• (2) EVGA GeForce GTX 680 Mac Edition 2GB
• Sonnet FW8USB3A-E Tango 3.0 USB 3.0/FireWire 800 Combo PCI Express Card

 

[ActionableMango]

There is definitely SATA to Molex. A few people including myself used the optical bay power converted from SATA to Molex in order to power early USB 3.0 cards that required supplemental power via a Molex connector. There is some difficulty in getting the cable through the small cable port/hole though.

If you want to continue to use both optical drive SATA connections, that is possible too but it requires a heck of a cable.

 

[biker4mac]

Ok, I’ll have to try searching a bit harder. I had found Molex to SATA - presumably to add a newer drive to an older machine. But when I wasn’t finding anything I figured that adding older components to a newer machine was less likely.

 

[ActionableMango]

This is the cable I used.
http://www.amazon.com/Lindy-SATA-Ex...F8&qid=1463097578&sr=8-1&keywords=lindy+33440

It's a lot more complicated than you probably want, but it enables you to use two SATA drives in the optical bay as well as pull power out for other purposes.

 

[biker4mac]

Thank you for the link. I would like to be able to retain the option of two SATA drives.

 

[ActionableMango]

I've been through all this before. You will probably need a Molex extension cable too. The Molex power connector on that Lindy cable is not long enough to get outside the optical cage at the front and then all the way back to the rear of the case.

Another problem you will have is that the Molex connector is too large to go through the hole, so you have to remove the Molex connector, run the wires through, and then reconnect the connector once the wires are through. Don't mix up the wires.