Using existing sleds AND wiring

[gusbeavis]

I know many people are able to continue to use the sleds in the Mac Pro case. But I get the impression from the mods I'm reading that nobody actually uses the bus attachments/wiring. Teardowns seem to include removing this stuff, and even the kit I got from thelaserhive shows that I need to remove 5 screws that I can't do unless I remove that hard drive hardware.

Has anyone been able to use that existing hardware? Or are people just wiring each hard drive separately even if they keep the sled? Is there something proprietary about those connections that prevent us from using it? (It is Apple after all...I'm surprised they don't use 7 sided screws just so nobody else could take it apart).

 

[mactoshpro]

Do you mean those sata connectors?
People just swap them with corsair ones

Mac Pro sata wiring harness help?

Okay so I went out and bought the max-connect for the sata wiring harness.... But it only connects to the sata, there is still the mini 8pin molex required to power the drives themselves. I *HAVE* seen mooners thread and diagrams about this, however I cannot make sense of them. From what I...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[gusbeavis]

Yeah the SATA connectors. Huh, I had no idea. Time to do some more googling I guess.

 

[mactoshpro]

Yeah the SATA connectors. Huh, I had no idea. Time to do some more googling I guess.

Actual link or google Carbide-Air-540-Hot-Swap-Connector to see what they look like.

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Accessories-%7C-Parts/PC-Components/Cases/Carbide-Air-540-Hot-Swap-Connector/p/CC-8930148

 

[gusbeavis]

This looks perfect, thank you. It even looks like it mounts right where the Apple hot swap connection mounts. Annoyingly, you can only buy 3 from Corsair at one time, but I'll just buy 3 now, and tack a 4th on a later order. I'm just ordering parts as I need them because I don't know what I'm doing (clearly).

 

[IJskonijn]

This looks perfect, thank you. It even looks like it mounts right where the Apple hot swap connection mounts. Annoyingly, you can only buy 3 from Corsair at one time, but I'll just buy 3 now, and tack a 4th on a later order. I'm just ordering parts as I need them because I don't know what I'm doing (clearly).

Yes, just get standard screws that are the same thread and they just screw into the original places!
On my build, I added some washers between the connector and the brackets for the perfect height.

 

[mactoshpro]

out of stock, i bought 4 of them in one go, but never got around to using them.

 

[macraq]

Has anyone been able to use that existing hardware?

I bought a used Hackintosh in Germany with this setup. Drive bays and mac sata harness were left in the cabinet. Board is Asus Maximus Gene VIII. The top PCI Slot is very close to the last drive No. 4 . So it fits if you use a board with a Micro-ATX Board. The MacPro aluminum case was modified with the laser hive set from UK. On the first look these parts seem to be a little bit expensive. But they are worth every cent. I´v seen a lot mods with this laser-cut pieces.

When I bought the Computer it was equipped with only one internal on-board M.2 ssd. I had to swap four drives (2 ssd and 2 HDs) from my old Mac Pro 3,1 to this machine. I managed to get a used maxconnect-cable for (10 € = approx. 10 $ ! ) on ebay, put the drives into the bays and everything worked great.

I love the MacPros Alu-Cases and so I decided to setup my first own Hackintosh almost as a copy of the used one that I had bought - but with some minor improvements (CPU, GPU etc.). Ordering the parts, I came to the point to buy another SATA/SAS Harness and could not believe the price (60$) for the MaxConnect Cable. I did not open the Case with the female Mini-SAS Plug - but I think there are no active parts in it. Please correct me if I am wrong. The cable just connects the Original Apple Mini SAS Male Connector to four SATA Connectors for your ATX board. And with this cable you have to find an additional solution for the power supplies for the SATA Swap-Connectors.

Today - with some research - I found the SilverStone SST-CPO5 Connector. In Germany this is available for 6,50 €:

SilverStone SST-CPO5 Connector

This could be perfect because the Power Connectors can be daisy chained and connected directly to a short PSU-Cable. And each SATA Cable is 50 cm. So I believe this could be a good solution with the advantage that there are no additional connectors in the SATA Cabling that might cause problems in the future. I ordered four items today and I am going to give a report if this works. But this will take some time... According to a lot of photos and one (chinese?) video on youtube I just have to disassemble the SATA Connector from the Plastic-Bridge. Hopefully the Connectors have exactly that same dimensions as the Apple-Parts. We will see...

 

[macraq]

As I expected, the connectors had to be modified to fit into the MacPro case. I attached them to the back of the metal tongues and cut away the black plastic on both sides - to the depth of the thin line on the far right (photo). This way I could fix the connectors with the included screws. But for this I had to drill the existing threaded holes in the tabs. If you have suitable screws, you can mount the connectors from the front. Just cut out the backside of the plugs. In any case the distance must be correct. You can check this best with a hard disk and a picture of your cell phone.