Cooling suggestions for drive bay in a tower case [Home Built PC]

Prev: Continued problem with XP install - was XP install gets started and then hangs
Next: Dead computer (sometimes) with blinking light on motherboard.

From: brassplyer on 8 Sep 2009 20:07

I've got an older tower case with a drive bay for 4 h/d's stacked on
top of each other horizontally - and of course baking each other with
their heat output.

Right now the case has a smaller 80mm fan just under this bay blowing
inward and a larger (120mm?) fan blowing out. Also a side case fan
currently blowing inward approximately over and toward the CPU.

I imagine there's air being drawn past the drives from the slotting in
the case in front of them, but would like to enhance cooling of them.
Any suggestions?

Thanks

From: Dave on 8 Sep 2009 20:36

"brassplyer" <brassplyer(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:ded26cb7-a64d-4b9f-8cd8-fd28a11ac677(a)y21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> I've got an older tower case with a drive bay for 4 h/d's stacked on
> top of each other horizontally - and of course baking each other with
> their heat output.
>
> Right now the case has a smaller 80mm fan just under this bay blowing
> inward and a larger (120mm?) fan blowing out. Also a side case fan
> currently blowing inward approximately over and toward the CPU.
>
> I imagine there's air being drawn past the drives from the slotting in
> the case in front of them, but would like to enhance cooling of them.
> Any suggestions?
>
> Thanks

OK, first, I'm assuming that you have four bays and that all four bays are
filled with exactly four hard drives?

First thought would be, how many empty 5.25" bays do you have? You can get
cheap adapters to allow the installation of a hard drive in a (optical
drive) bay. Or get hot swap trays, even (drawers slide out with hard drive
inside). Most towers have 3-4 optical drive bays. You likely have at least
two being unused. Move two of the hard drives there. Even in an uncooled
"hot swap" bay, those drives will be cooler. Just opening up space between
the other two will help. Just make sure all your cables will reach the
optical drive bays. At worst, you might need to buy a new cable or power
splitter or something. I'll try to post a link below. -Dave

http://www.macmall.com/ttsvr/p/2278826?dpno=349157
http://www.buy.com/prod/startech-com-5-25-tray-less-sata-hot-swap-hard-drive-bay-1-x-3-5-1-3h/q/loc/101/203482774.html
(this is trayless and SATA, but they make IDE versions with slide-out trays)

From: ohaya on 8 Sep 2009 23:25

Dave wrote:
>
> "brassplyer" <brassplyer(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:ded26cb7-a64d-4b9f-8cd8-fd28a11ac677(a)y21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
>
>> I've got an older tower case with a drive bay for 4 h/d's stacked on
>> top of each other horizontally - and of course baking each other with
>> their heat output.
>>
>> Right now the case has a smaller 80mm fan just under this bay blowing
>> inward and a larger (120mm?) fan blowing out. Also a side case fan
>> currently blowing inward approximately over and toward the CPU.
>>
>> I imagine there's air being drawn past the drives from the slotting in
>> the case in front of them, but would like to enhance cooling of them.
>> Any suggestions?
>>
>> Thanks
>
>
> OK, first, I'm assuming that you have four bays and that all four bays
> are filled with exactly four hard drives?
>
> First thought would be, how many empty 5.25" bays do you have? You can
> get cheap adapters to allow the installation of a hard drive in a
> (optical drive) bay. Or get hot swap trays, even (drawers slide out
> with hard drive inside). Most towers have 3-4 optical drive bays. You
> likely have at least two being unused. Move two of the hard drives
> there. Even in an uncooled "hot swap" bay, those drives will be
> cooler. Just opening up space between the other two will help. Just
> make sure all your cables will reach the optical drive bays. At worst,
> you might need to buy a new cable or power splitter or something. I'll
> try to post a link below. -Dave
>
> http://www.macmall.com/ttsvr/p/2278826?dpno=349157
> http://www.buy.com/prod/startech-com-5-25-tray-less-sata-hot-swap-hard-drive-bay-1-x-3-5-1-3h/q/loc/101/203482774.html
> (this is trayless and SATA, but they make IDE versions with slide-out
> trays)

Hi,

If the drives the OP has are SATA, I'd second the trayless SATA rack. I
have one (a Thermaltake Max4), in the top 5.25" space in my case, and
the 750GB drive I have in that is the coolest running drive in the case
(~35C after running all day).

I would mention a problem that I've had with the one I have though.
When I first installed it, everything was fine, but after several months
of use (with the drive not being removed), when I booted my system up
one morning, the Windows boot hung at the screen with the scrolling bar.

It took me awhile to figure things out, but I found that if I popped the
drive out of the trayless rack, the system would boot fine.

At that time, I ended up putting the drive into the case (not in the
rack) for awhile, but then, a couple of weeks ago, I got kind of
curious, so I took a closer look at the rack.

Now, most of these trayless SATA racks have what's called a "NSS" or
"non-scratch SATA" connector. Apparently this is a connector that
clamps onto the SATA connector as the drive is shoved into it.

So, I started doing some experimenting, doing things like trying to
shove the drive in firmer, etc., and, at first, I wasn't very
successful. The system would still hang on boot once in awhile.

Then, I was looking at the door. There's a small curved spring steel
piece that's attached to the inside of the door. The idea is that as
you swing the door shut, that spring steel piece is suppose to exert
some force to push the drive back into the drive.

I also noticed that (in my case) the door was hinged on the right, so
pressure as you closed the door was mostly on the right side.

So, what I did was take a piece of foam rubber (the black/gray kind used
for packing hard drives) and cut a thin small square, then I taped that
to the left front end of the SATA drive. My idea was that having that
there, there'd be more even pressure on the front of the drive as the
door was closed.

I did that about 3 weeks ago, and the system has been booting fine since
then.

That foam piece is getting a little compressed, so I may need to replace
it later, or, I've been thinking of replacing it with a small piece of
that 3M double-sided foam tape.

Anyway, just an FYI. I'm still amazed at how cool that drive runs, even
though the rack doesn't have a fan.

Jim

From: nospam on 9 Sep 2009 00:49

From: kony on 9 Sep 2009 01:45

On Tue, 8 Sep 2009 17:07:11 -0700 (PDT), brassplyer
<brassplyer(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

>I've got an older tower case with a drive bay for 4 h/d's stacked on
>top of each other horizontally - and of course baking each other with
>their heat output.
>
>Right now the case has a smaller 80mm fan just under this bay blowing
>inward and a larger (120mm?) fan blowing out. Also a side case fan
>currently blowing inward approximately over and toward the CPU.
>
>I imagine there's air being drawn past the drives from the slotting in
>the case in front of them, but would like to enhance cooling of them.
>Any suggestions?
>
>Thanks

Depends on how fancy or finshed looking you want it to be.
There are ready made drive caddies with a fan on the bottom
(usually a poor quality fan, too thin and the bearing wears
out in a year or two), a fan in the front (usually very
little airflow due to the size unless spinning at high
enough RPM to be relatively loud), and could also be a low
quality fan unless you replace it with your own which starts
to get expensive at typically 2 fans per slot.

Hard drives in moderate ambient temperatures don't need a
lot of cooling. Especially if it's room temperature air in
a climate controlled room instead of pre-heated by other
components in the system already. Any option with a slower
RPM fan is probably a better option unless you have an
extreme environment you haven't mentioned.

One option seldom mentioned is to use the existing bay
faceplate blanks. Assuming they are plastic (Or if not you
would devise a different fastening method), simply take two
of them, put a bead of plastic cement between the edges
where they meet top to bottom as situated in the case bezel,
and glue them together.

Once the glue has dried, cut out a round hole for an 80mm
fan, leaving enough plastic on the top and bottom for it to
remain structurally sound (need not be a lot, it's only a
small plastic fan). Take some sandpaper and smooth the
rough edges, hold the 80mm x 25mm thick fan up to it to mark
where the screw holes need to go.

Often with typical "PC case fans" they come with wires too
short to reach a motherboard header if they use the small
0.1" pin spaced, 3 pin connector. In that case an extension
cord would be needed, IIRC places like http://www.svc.com
sell them cheaply in the US.

Given a low RPM 80mm x 25mm fan per each pair of drives,
throttling back the RPM even further if you desire, you
achieve a good combination of low noise, large selection of
fans to choose in this size, and minimal restriction to
airflow although I would put a wire fan grill in front of it
just in case anything would come near the blades.

Putting a 25mm thick fan behind these case blank faceplate
panels usually requires a 5.25" to 3.5" drive rail adapter
that has two mounting holes allowing the drive to sit a
little further back in the system than some. The common
folded golden metal colored ones that came with drives for
year or are available for a buck or two are the type I'm
referring to. They aren't always necessary as some cases
have slots for the top bays instead of only round screw
holes so any drive rail could be scooted backwards some, but
I do recommend going with at least a 20mm thick fan for
better balance and airflow per RPM.

Even simplier option is to just take the faceplates off and
either make a bracket or just use magnets to hold a piece of
filter material against the metal case frame, OR drill a
bunch of little holes in the blank plates so the rear
exhaust fans pull air in through these holes, or substitute
some perforated material, something like the foil layer
inside a microwave oven door.

.... or just do it the easy way and look at some products

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=577&name=Hard-Drive-Cooling

| Next | Last
Pages: 1 2 3
Prev: Continued problem with XP install - was XP install gets started and then hangs
Next: Dead computer (sometimes) with blinking light on motherboard.