I have two spare laptop hard drives and I want to use them with my raspberry Pi4. I wonder if a 5v2a power supply enough to make them up and running. If a 5v2a power supply wasn't enough, which kind of power supply should I purchase?
Asked
Active
Viewed 2,647 times
1 Answers
3
A 'portable' 2.5" USB HDD can take bursts of considerably more than 500mA at the time of spin-up, up to 1000mA or more, and also when seeking or carry out extended reads/writes. Also, the total current available from all of the USB ports is 1200mA, so using 2 USB drives at once is VERY unlikely to be successful, even with the official 5.1v 3.0A (3000mA) power supply, let alone a 5v 'charger' or PSU with a lesser current rating. I have tried 2 USB powered drives at once (one Toshiba Canvio 1TB and one WD Elements 2TB) with an RPi 4 and was rewarded with loud clicking noises and very erratic operation. To connect two drives, at least one must be independently powered, e.g. by a powered USB hub.
If you are talking about 'laptop' hard drives (bare 2.5" SATA drives) you will have to house them in enclosures, or use USB-to-SATA adapters, which may introduce some further complications with the Pi 4, covered by a sticky at the Raspberry Pi official forum. That forum is an invaluable resource which should probably be the first place an RPi user goes to in times of trouble.
Michael Harvey
- 1,410
- 8
- 11