kony wrote:
> John Corliss wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>>> But back to the hard drives, I'd like to find something that will mount so
>>>> as to suck the hot air right off of the hard drives and out of the case. I
>>>> would prefer not to use something that will suck the heat off of the hard
>>>> drives and distribute it into the case, but maybe that additional fan in
>>>> the 5.25" empty bay will render that concern of no consequence. Any
>>>> recommendations?
>>>
>>> Easiest solution (if your case allows it)
>>
>> Unfortunately, this is not the situation. It's a very bad design.
>
> A case can be set up to do that with no problems whatsoever.
> I happen to have a couple that did no worse than any other
> configuration. All it requires is a side-panel fan with
> ample flow rate to not limit exhaust from both the
> rear-upper quadrant and front-bottom. Actually a little
> more than equalized so positive pressurization forces some
> air out in other areas too. In fact it might even be
> optimal for extreme overclocking.
>
> The thing is, most cases are not set up with such a large
> side fan(s), and it is not a good thing to do with a small
> side fan or none at all. Generally it would require at
> least two 92mm, one 120mm, or two loud 80mm fans in the side
> panel.
>
>>> is to separate the drives (put one
>>> drive space between them) and have an intake at the front of your system
>>> sucking air in and blowing it across them. You can easily attach a filter
>>> (bought or home-made) to prevent dust monsters from invading. As far as the
>>> added warm air, if you have a couple of good exhaust fans it'll make little
>>> or no difference and in fact might even keep your case cleaner if you had
>>> negative pressure in there before the fan was added.
>
> Completely untrue.
> Adding a filter that is even remotely effective at keeping
> dust out of a system will substantially reduce the flow rate
> in the system. It doesn't even come remotely close to being
> offset by the dust accumulation unless you only consider one
> running state for comparison- the temp at a moment _after_
> having ran for several years in a very dusty/dirty
> environment. That would be presuming system was never
> cleaned. Ironically even then, the filtered system would be
> hotter as we would then have to assume the filters weren't
> cleaned either, if a person were so reckless to leave a box
> running in dirty environment for several years between
> maintenance intervals.
>
> I'm not against filtered systems, my main-use system IS
> filtered in fact, as well as others and the filters do
> always cut flow rate a lot except in an otherwise very poor
> case where there was so much impedance to flow that the
> filter state was a minor %
>
>> As I just mentioned in another post, I'm thinking of fabricating an
>> extension of some sort though. Also, I notice that the rack lacks holes
>> for ventilation where it would hurt nothing to have them. I will drill
>> them in.
>
> Holes where, in the sides?

Yes, and they would be directly in line with the fan I install so as to
facilitate air flow over the hard drives.

> You may not benefit much from holes in the sides unless the
> rack is rotated such that the long-side of the drive is
> parallel with the front wall of the case, ie- rotated 90'
> from how they're normally situated. Adding holes to the
> typical configuration just allows more air to escape or be
> slowed down traveling through the racks instead of maximum
> flow across the drive surfaces. Since your case is 3 years
> old it's not likely your drives are rotated 90' as mentioned
> above.

Cables go into the part of the drive facing the back of the case.
They're not rotated.

>> I am looking into cutting a hole in the side panel right where the hard
>> drives are and then mounting another 80 mm fan in that hole. It won't be
>> pretty, but it should do the job.
>
> Why? What case?

Sorry, not sure what you mean by "what case?". In any event, I was
referring to cutting a hole in the tower's side panel directly in line
with the location of the hard drives.

> That may have less benefit than you think.

Not if the fan is one inch or less from and blowing directly across the
hard drives, as will be the situation with my setup. Additional exhaust
from the case will be assisted by a triple fan setup in the one
remaining 5.25" bay. Operational temp range for the Seagate is 0° to
60°C (32° to 140°F). For the Deskstar, it's 5 to 55° C (41° to 131°F).

> The typical solution, to have large passive intake vent or a
> fan, in front of the whole rack such that the vast majority
> of case intake is pulled through that rack, is quite
> sufficient for cooling the drives.

There are vent holes in front of the drives in my case behind the
faceplate. However, obviously they're not doing the job adequately.

> While they need airflow
> for cooling, they are not hard to cool given some space
> between each in the rack.

And therein lies my problem. That plastic cage I described is situated
directly below the hard drives in the front of the case and restricts
the amount I can lower the bottom-most drive to only an additional inch.
However, that should be sufficient to improve airflow. That lowering
will be accomplished by fabirication of an extension to the hard drive
cage. I don't know *why* it was built so that the drives are mounted
only 1/8" apart. As I said in another post, it's just bad engineering on
somebody's part.

>> What I don't understand about my case is that there's some kind of
>> square plastic cage that's 3" deep by 4.25" tall by 3.5" wide and it's
>> located in the front at the bottom, snapped onto a ventilated metal
>> portion of the case. There is a sensor of some kind in the cage and it
>> has two wires going to it. I think this is supposed to be a housing for
>> an optional case fan that I foolishly didn't order with the system.
>
> Standard front-case fan configuration, and the "sensor" is a
> speaker, perhaps better called a buzzer since it's tonal
> range is rather small. If your motherboard has an integral
> speaker, you don't need it.

I'll be hornswoggled. Thanks for the explanation. However, I don't see
how a fan would need it. The rear fan is attached directly to the metal
back of the case and I see no reason why the front one would need that
plastic cage around it.

>> However, since the system is three years old and there's no manual for
>> the case I don't know for sure what the cage is for.
>
> Fan holder. It may also have slots in it, that "could" be
> used to support the ends of full-length cards... at least
> some of them used to have such slots, if/when the case was
> the right length, and that is why the cage was so deep in
> such cases, to match where a full-length card would end.
> That doesn't necessarily mean it coincides to that length in
> your case, the manufacturer may've simply spec'd one fan
> frame that does serve this purpose in one or more cases but
> used same part in other cases as well.

My intention is not to mount a fan in it though. Since heat rises *and*
since I want additional cooling of my DVD drives, this unit or one like
it looks to be what I want for that purpose:

http://www.casecooler.com/514slothardr.html

As for cooling the hard drives, either my idea (side cover mounted fan
and additional holes in hard drive or this unit:


http://proline.com/tech/stacker/

will work. The Stacker unit though, would place the drives too far to
the rear unless I remove the plactic fan cage.

For the time being, I'm running my system with the side cover off and a
desk fan blowing on it lightly. Monitored temps are definitely lower.

--
Regards from John Corliss