Installing an SSD to the optical drive by on a 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge is really easy and provides extra flexibility. The only thing you really need to know is that the bay is 9.5mm high, there are lots of generic caddies on Amazon that will fit neatly into the drive bay.
I have a PowerEdge R330 which I wanted to install an SSD into, it works really well. Here is the SSD Installed in the Optical Drive Bay:
VMWare ESXi is able to see the drive no problem.
ESXi is installed on 2 x 32Gb internally, leaving the SSD usable as a data store:
There is actually a second SATA connector on the motherboard and plenty of space at the front of the system where you could easily place another SSD (without putting it into a caddy). But I haven’t tried that.
I have not used the optical bay on a Dell server in years, installing an SSD in there makes better use of the space. You could use it as a normal data store or perhaps a flash based read cache in ESXi.
If you are based in the UK, I highly recommend using ETB Technology for sourcing Dell hardware. They are so knowledgeable, super helpful and seem to have everything you can imagine in stock.
Kashan says
I am looking forward to do this myself. Which SATA port did you use? The ODD one? Do you know if both ports are SATA 3?
Paulie says
Yes, I used the ODD port. I don’t know what SATA revision they are, but I would have thought that they are 3. I don’t have the server anymore so I can’t look. It was a very easy upgrade.
Ozkan says
hi,
I’ve R230 with same specs. 4×3.5″ hot-swap chassis. Could you please send me the cd-rom power cable part number you used.
thanks,
Paulie says
I didn’t purchase any additional cables – I used the cabling that was already in place for the CD-ROM drive.
Ozkan says
Hi,
Thank you for your reply. I don’t have CD-ROM, it’s empty. I’m searching the cable because of it.
Paulie says
Ah ok, I have a supplier that can tell me the part number. I will ask them and come back to you. What country are you in?
Ozkan says
Hi,
I’m In Turkey 🙂 I’ve asked local DELL distributors, none of them have an answer.
Paulie says
I asked mine and they said it is:
YY94X – CAVLE ASSY ODD 2X3.5 R230