Looking for msata half size SSDs

Hello,

A couple of months ago I bought some Dell Wyse Z90DW thins clients for dirt cheap. I really like them but their storage is really limited, only 4GB which is fine for OpenBSD but limits it to only a single project.

I’m looking for a good sata half size SSD replacement with around 128GB of storage or more. The only brand I can find online (Alibaba and AliExpress) are nameless or KingSpec (LTT did a video on one of their SSDs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7YBCynA-b0). Preferably from a well known brand (Samsung, Crucial, Adata, Kingston, etc).

EDIT: I know that I can rip open some 2.5 inch SSDs and use the internals of that, e.g. like this: https://youtu.be/JvKiMPFXYsI?t=185

EDIT2: Thanks to @KleerKut and @CaptainChaos for pointing out the mistake I made with msata and sata. I need a half size sata card.

Thanks in advance!

mSATA and regular SATA are physically incompatible. If your machine is like the one in the video then that is regular SATA. You could either do what he did or find an extension cable and mount the drive somewhere without having to rip it apart.

The two technologies can be interchanged with adapters. I have a couple of 24GB ADATA mSATA drives in small Linux boxes with adapters. I bought them a number of years ago pretty cheap when larger SSD’s were much more expensive. Now that SATA is dirt cheap and decent mSATA drives are harder to find, it would likely be a better option to find an adapter to go from SATA to mSATA if that is the connector you need.

1 Like

Do you mean like these? https://www.newegg.com/samsung-860-evo-series-250gb/p/N82E16820147683

1 Like

For reference : on the left is an mSATA drive (120GB 840EVO), on the right a SATA one that has been opened like the video @Joholo posted (240GB 850EVO).

As you can see, these clearly are not interchangeable.

1 Like

Those are to long, and as KleerKut said the slot is sata not msata (I thought it was msata).

Yeah, thanks @CaptainChaos. I got it mixed up, clearly I need sata not msata.

1 Like

It looks like my best option is to break open some 2.5 inch SSDs or use the secondary sata port with some wiring.

If I remember correctly, SATA to Molex power adapters don’t use 3.3V (do any use it outside of mSATA or M.2?) and things like SSD’s and laptop optical drives don’t use 12V. If you need to rig something up, you can chop a SATA power connector from an old adapter or power supply and connect the 5V and ground to any 5V source such as USB. I did this with a laptop DVD drive once and it works perfectly fine. That plus a standard SATA data cable can get you going if you have the stuff on hand.

The motherboard has a micro JST connector that can provide 5V (https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/z/z90d7/)

1 Like

@KleerKut & @CaptainChaos

I’ve found parkytowers.me.uk to be an excellent source about all kinds of thin client pcs. He has a detailed write up about the Wyse Zx0 series. Worth a look if you maybe have some thin clients yourself.

1 Like