Request Advice: How to power 4 SSDs connected to RPI

B

bornlibra23

Disciple
I would like to connect 4 SSDs to RPI to make a low power & low bandwidth NAS . However it cant power 4 SSDs by itself.
I am looking for a way to have the power come from an external adapter while the data comes over the usual USB to SATA adapters; essentially to separate the source of power & data.
I would still like the 4 SSDs to be directly connected to the PI's USB for data
Please advise.
 
bornlibra23 said:
I would like to connect 4 SSDs to RPI to make a low power & low bandwidth NAS . However it cant power 4 SSDs by itself.
I am looking for a way to have the power come from an external adapter while the data comes over the usual USB to SATA adapters; essentially to separate the source of power & data.
I would still like the 4 SSDs to be directly connected to the PI's USB for data
Please advise.
Click to expand...
Any powered USB hub should do the trick
 
Can I just use a 5v power supply to do this with some wire hacking?
ibose said:
Any powered USB hub should do the trick
Click to expand...
I am not looking for a hub as that will add an extra hop to the NAS & force all the data to be sent over one USB itself. The system is fragile enough as it is.
 
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ibose said:
What is the adapter you are using to power the Pi ?

external USB SSD to Pi 4 - Raspberry Pi Forums

forums.raspberrypi.com forums.raspberrypi.com
Click to expand...
I have a RPi 3b+ which is using the original RPi adapter.
I checked the link you shared but when the SSDs are connected the CPU runs very hot at 75 degrees. I assume other relevant chips also run hot. Thats why I am pursuing this. I dont know much about hacking a PI.
Something like
https://www.amazon.in/PiBOX-India-Adapter-Compatible-Desktop/dp/B07V78GMXS/ but with one power input for 4 or more SSDs
 
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If you're going to power it externally, why do you want to go for SSDs and not HDDs? HDDs are good enough for NAS.

You can get something like this (4 of them for 4 SSDs)
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07V78GMXS

Might be rather expensive

You can also get 2 of these

PiBOX India, Dual Bay USB 3.0 to SATA I, II, III Hard Drive Docking Station Upto 12TB for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD with Hard Drive Duplicator Offline Clone and Auto Sleep and UASP - Top-Loading Design : Amazon.in: Computers & Accessories

PiBOX India, Dual Bay USB 3.0 to SATA I, II, III Hard Drive Docking Station Upto 12TB for 2.5 or 3.5in HDD, SSD with Hard Drive Duplicator Offline Clone and Auto Sleep and UASP - Top-Loading Design : Amazon.in: Computers & Accessories
www.amazon.in
 
This will be my secondary NAS for important stuff so I wish to have SSD's for reliability. So I am also trying to avoid any points of failure from the USB to the SSD. Thats why I am trying to use 4 USB ports for 4 drives.
 
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Lucky you caught me in my free time.

I designed this adapter which will use external power for all 4 ports and only use data communication lines for data transfer between USBs and Raspberry PI.

Here is the schematic.

1692024171853.png


How it will look like :-

1692024231737.png


In 3D

1692024330678.png


You will have to use 20watt 5V/4A power supply for this thing, if you want to supply 1A to each USB port one I could find is this one -
https://www.thingbits.in/products/5v-4a-4000ma-switching-power-supply-ul-listed

But normally using 10watt 5V/2A will also work fine for SSDs which will split into 0.5A to each USB port. I think that's what they require not sure.

You you can rig one yourself up using these of the self modules called USB Type A Female Breakout Boards, but I don't how reliable this will be. You will be needing 8 of these and some dupont wires for connection, a power connector and the schematic above.
1692024783385.png


I am attaching the 4 layer PCB gerber file for manufacturing if anyone wants to develop this board. I take no responsibility of it's working cause it's a fast prototype, but 90% sure it will work, don't plug the connections in opposite, something might go boom, because there is no protection circuitry involved.
 

Attachments

  • USB_External_Power_Adatper_5V_4A.zip
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Thank you very much for this. I will try to build this. Meanwhile I will hunt for some other solution. Can we place a usb connector here. Instead of a barral jack?
 
JMP said:
If they are SATA, could you buy a lower power SMPS and derive power to the disks from it?
Click to expand...
I thought of that but then how will I connect the sata data lines to the USB on the pi? I can't seem to find USB to sata adapters with only data lines connected. Using a psu will also increase electric consumption.
 
bornlibra23 said:
Female type C
Click to expand...
First we have figure out how much current your one SSD consumes, if it is 1A or 0.5A. So it will be 2A or 4A total or more.

In case of 4A or more, sadly it might not work with Type-C connection, because as far as I know to get more than 3A from a true Type C (1.2) power supply connection the device first must perform handshake communication to trigger higher current/power level. Since the board above is purely passive with no brain of it's own it will only get 3A from Type-C (1.2).

In case of less than equal to 3A it should work.

You can simply get modules like this -

1692029178426.png


https://evelta.com/usb-c-breakout-board-downstream-connection/

VBUS is your positive supply and GND is ground. Leave all the other pins. If you like I can add this connector to above board at later time. It will hard to solder though because of very tight pin spacing as compared to DC barrel jack to the PCB.
 
Heisen said:
Lucky you caught me in my free time.

I designed this adapter which will use external power for all 4 ports and only use data communication lines for data transfer between USBs and Raspberry PI.

Here is the schematic.

View attachment 175629

How it will look like :-

View attachment 175630

In 3D

View attachment 175631

You will have to use 20watt 5V/4A power supply for this thing, if you want to supply 1A to each USB port one I could find is this one -
https://www.thingbits.in/products/5v-4a-4000ma-switching-power-supply-ul-listed

But normally using 10watt 5V/2A will also work fine for SSDs which will split into 0.5A to each USB port. I think that's what they require not sure.

You you can rig one yourself up using these of the self modules called USB Type A Female Breakout Boards, but I don't how reliable this will be. You will be needing 8 of these and some dupont wires for connection, a power connector and the schematic above.
View attachment 175632

I am attaching the 4 layer PCB gerber file for manufacturing if anyone wants to develop this board. I take no responsibility of it's working cause it's a fast prototype, but 90% sure it will work, don't plug the connections in opposite, something might go boom, because there is no protection circuitry involved.
Click to expand...
This is UBS2 only, right? Using an ssd with USB2 is a bottleneck hell.
 
ze_cook said:
This is UBS2 only, right? Using an ssd with USB2 is a bottleneck hell.
Click to expand...
No its not USB2, it becomes what the device uses. Think of it like a USB pass through device. It doesn’t matter if the connection is USB3 or USB2 , because both those use the same 4 wire protocol. Just like a USB cable. There are no specific USB2 or USB3 cables.
 
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