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Install an SSD in the Optical Bay of a 13th Generation PowerEdge

by 8 Comments

Installing an SSD to the optical drive by on a 13th Generation Dell PowerEdge is really easy. The only thing you really need to know is that the bay is 9.5mm high. I used this caddy from Amazon.

I installed the SSD into a PowerEdge R330, it works really well. Here is the SSD Installed in the Optical Drive Bay:

Image of a Dell PowerEdge server with an SSD Installed in the DVD Drive bay.
The SATA SSD Installed in the DVD/CD Drive bay.
Front image of an SSD Installed into the optical bay of a Dell PowerEdge Server
From the front it looks just like a Normal Optical Drive

ESXi is installed on 2 x 32Gb SD Cards, the SSD is free to be used as a data store:

Image showing ESXi datastore with an SSD installed into the Optical bay of a Dell PowerEdge Server.
Image of Install of Internal SD Card Into a Dell PowerEdge R330
SD Cards being installed by a certified PowerEdge expert.

There is a second SATA connector on the motherboard and space at the front where you could install another SSD. But I haven’t tried that.

I haven’t used the DVD Drive on a Dell server in years, an SSD makes better use of the space. You could use it as a normal data store or perhaps a flash based read cache in ESXi.

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Comments

  1. 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?

  2. 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.

  3. 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,

  4. Paulie says

    I didn’t purchase any additional cables – I used the cabling that was already in place for the CD-ROM drive.

  5. 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.

  6. 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?

  7. Ozkan says

    Hi,

    I’m In Turkey 🙂 I’ve asked local DELL distributors, none of them have an answer.

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