Thin Client: HP T520

Mods

I March 2021 I heard from Luuk who was using his t520 for home automation and as a file server. The latter aspect obviously calls for the addition of one or more SSDs or hard drives and there are various ways that this can be approached.

These days you can buy mPCIe controllers that provide a connection point for two SATA3.0 drives. These add-on cards are the same size as the majority of wireless cards that are fitted to thin clients and so can utilise that on-board connector. Note: Such mPCIe interfaces - or M.2 interfaces - usually can only accommodate the 'mini' board size that most wireless adapters are. Anything larger is unlikely to fit.

So these controllers provide a means of adding SATA ports for additional drives, however the thin client was not designed with these particular boards in mind and using them requires some form of compromise. It is a similar case with the added disk drives - where do you put them?

The solution depends on whether you're happy significantly altering the appearance of your thin client or not. With servers you interact with them over the network and so they can be tucked away somewhere out of sight - in a cupboard, up in the loft, down in the basement.... so do you want something that still looks 'pretty' or just something that works?

Recently I have had examples of each approach:

Adding two SATA drives

Here is the mPCIe SATA interface board fitted to the t520. The data sockets on the board are vertical and are close to the metal side panel once it is fitted, in fact so close that there is no way that any plug (straight or right-angle) can be used without some form of modification.

The next step is to use your metal working skills to cut away the side panel immediately above the fitted SATA board and also the plastic side panel.

With these out of the way and the cover refitted...

...you can plug in the SATA data leads.

The finished item. As mentioned at the start not particularly elegant, but it works and is going to be hidden away out of sight somewhere.

This is one of those cases where buying another 'dead' t520 might be useful. Rip out the dead circuit board and you can fit the two drives in the empty casing and make yourself a 'W' (wide) version of the t520!

BTW Luuk powered his disk drives from the +5V supplies available on the USB ports.