This is super frustrating for me. I tried my hand on a much older IBM X3550 7978 series first, and it was going to be a bit slow. But it got me thinking in a server world and less desktop/laptop. So I bought a much newer Lenovo x3550 M5 series. But...they gave me the wrong data cable for the backplate. So I bought this cable here. Not the right one. It's too small for the board, and way too long for the cable to fit in the rack securely. Also I was really bright and didn't see that the cable was angled at a 90 degree.

I'm going to put Linux on this puppy once I get the cable figured out. Can anyone shoot me to the right cable I need?

I've a RazPi 4 here as a media box. I just have it plugged into the router with a pair of mains network adaptors. It has it's own IP from the router, so I can get on by somethink like 'ssh user@sparrowfart.' The monitor hangs out of it as well. Power consumption is about 10W when idle.

What's all this about racks, and wrong cables? What type of cable are you looking for?

What does the cable attach to? Can I assume hard drive to motherboard?

That's what I'm trying to figure out. Lenovo has great documentation on what cable I need. Basically it's the data cable going from motherboard to backplate. I have one, but it is way too short, and no extension for the one I have. The power side is already taken care of.

So here is a pic of what I really need. I wanted to upload here, but the size limit is 256k! I doublechecked the motherboard and that big end is what should go to the motherboard, and the little end goes to the backplate. I tried a slightly smaller cable on the motherboard, but that didn't work. If it was a power cable I needed, I might try splicing something together. But data is a bit more important.

I'm trying to figure out what that is a cable for? Is that an sdcard in the cable?

I'm just using RJ45, or of course Wifi. It's not rocket science, especially on linux. Just beware that the vadt majority of Lenovo's users will be on Windows.

No, it's....to me it looks like a SAS cable and not SATA, because SAS is just a SATA without the L-shape, so it looks like a | shape, but with a few extra wires on the top of it. Also, you can use multiple SAS drives with one SAS port, whereas with Sata, 1 drive, 1 port. Server stuff is so interesting because they try to cram as much crap into spaces like a laptop, but then everything is laid out like a desktop at the same time.

Lenovo uses proprietory cables (besides some standard cables) in their machines. A missing proprietory cable may be one reason that you got this machine for a low price. Take photos of all connectors which should be connected with the missing cable.