Help needed in 2.5" drive installation questions on Predator Orion PO5-650

In the user manual, there is a mention of HDD/SDD install locations.

It mentions 2 mounting locations for 2.5" drives on the metal backplate to which the motherboard is mounted (on the other side) and I have seen this location.

It also mentions 2 locations for 3.5" drives - the HDD cage.

The user manual goes into some detail on how to install the 3.5" drives in the HDD cage and I think this is adequately explained.

However, besides mentioning the mounting location for the 2.5" drives, it gives absolutely no information or instructions on how to install these. While it seems pretty easy to screw them in place, there are no cables mounted/taped near this location.

Do you have to buy extra internal cables to install and electrically connect the 2.5" drives?

Or do you have to take the connectors that are connected to the back of the 3.5" HDD cage and hook those up to the 2.5" drives?

Can you connect two 3.5" drives and two 2.5" drives at the same time, or are they mutually exclusive (one or the other, but not both)?

None of this is explained in the user manual and I could not find anything on this forum, youtube or the internet in general on this subject.

I hope someone on this forum knows the answer and can help.

Thank you in advance for your time.

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billsey

Yes, in addition to the two M.2 SSD slots on the motherboard, there are four SATA connectors for ODDs, HDDs and SSDs. You use power connections from the PSU to go to the drives and standard SATA data cables to go from the motherboard to the drives. It doesn't matter if the drives are 2.5" or 3.5", they both use the same cabling.

The four SATA connectors are at #12, and two of those are likely already wired into the drive cage. For the 2.5" drives you will need two more SATA data cables, of an appropriate length to reach where they mount.

Thor4theFun

Thank you for that information, billsey!

No problem finding some SATA cables. About the power cables though, do I need some special ones or are there generic ones that will work with this power supply? I don't want to search for "power cables" on Amazon or Newegg or such site, do you know a more specific term for these? Or do I even need special ones to match the specific power supply in this PC?

A related but separate question - is the M.2 connector at #9 on the motherboard photo for an NVME drive or a SATA drive? Also, a friend told me that sometimes, the 2nd M.2 connector on a motherboard might be mutually exclusive with the SATA bus or at least shares it and as such is slowed down quite a bit.

Do you know if that is an issue with this PC? I am planning to install at least 1 HDD in the cage, 1 or 2 SATA 2.5" drives and a 2nd M.2 in that #9 connection.

Thanks again for your (or anyone else who wants to chime in) help.

billsey

The Predator PO5-650 doesn't use an ATX12VO power supply, so the power supply itself should have SATA power connectors, not needing the ones that come off the motherboard that the 12VO designs have. Neither of the M.2 SSD slots support SATA Drives, just NVMe. They are both PCIe 4.0 x4, though are backward compatible with PCIe 3.0 and x2. I have one generation older than yours, PO5-640, as my main desktop and have two 2TB SSDs in the M.2 slots and two 8TB HDDs in the cage without issues. I haven't gone through the process of upgrading the cooling, since I seldom do heavy gaming…

Thor4theFun

Thanks again for your help.

I might have overestimated the ease of installing the 2.5" drives. In looking at the mounting location with those 4 screw holes on the metal plate (back of motherboard), I realized that 2.5" drives from Samsung and Sandisk don't have those kind of holes to support mounting like that. I think Crucial might, but I don't have those drives. It seems a caddy of some sort is required to install SSDs there.

I searched on the internet for both generic or Predator Orion specific 2.5" caddies. I didn't find anything.

I bought my unit refurbished. Do these PCs usually come with caddies for those locations from the factory?

Thanks again.

billsey

It looks to me like the 2.5" drives mount to the included back plates:

You should be able to loosen those two thumb screws (or maybe just regular screws with a spring to hold them), then screw the drive to the mounting plate, then put the thumbscrews back in to hold the drive in place. Does yours not have those two plates? All 2.5" drives I've ever worked with have screw holes on the bottom and on the sides. You would use the ones on the bottom to match up with the plates.

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