Hard drive cooling

[Coke Robot]

What unusual weather!

I need some suggestions/advice for my new case rebuild. For those that don't know, I have plans to hold 15 hard drives in my new tower, through the use of hard drive cages, specifically these ones...

Newegg.com - ICY DOCK MB453SPF-B 3 in 2 SATA I, II & III Hot-Swap Internal Backplane Raid Cage Module

I'm also planning on using some Western Digital Red series hard drives as well, since they're designed for 24/7/RAID/NAS usage which fits my needs better as I use my compilator pretty much 24/7 with some exceptions being at night when I go to bed or sleep it throughout the day when I'm not in the room or not at home when no tasks are being executed.

And this is the dilemma: cooling. My current case design has the cages so that the front and back of it will be facing or touching the sides of the case. There will be some acrylic sheets used on the outside of the case, and I've channeled out half an inch on the sides of said case. So if one were to look at the case from the top, there will be an air intake (0.5" x 5-3/4" for the intake dimensions) from the left and exhaust port on the right, as the air will flow from left to right as the cages allow. I'm thinking I might use a 120mm and a 90mm fan for that.

The question I'm having is do hard drives, in this scenario of mine, need such cooling? I'll be watercooling the CPU, and stock air cooling of the graphics card, that is at least if I decided on an uber purchase of an ASUS ROG Radeon 7990 that has watercooling. Will probably cost a child for that...

Thank you and good evening! I need coffee.

 

[azasadny]

My experience with putting many hard drives in a case is that they are the primary source of heat, not the CPU or GPU or chipset, etc... I put fans in front, fans in the rear, fans at the bottom (case goes on a wire rack) and exhaust fans at the top. I also keep my server (5 x 2TB WD 7200rpm Caviar Black drives for a total of 10TB) in the basement, in the pantry, on a shelf where the temp stays cool all year. I also recommend a quality power supply (which is obvious) as they can really generate heat, especially the cheap ones. I tried the hard drive coolers that attach to the drives and they were all garbage and were not effective at all... I use 120mm ThermalTake fans and I put a Scotch pad in front of the front fan, behind the case's bezel to trap the dust and I clean them regularly.so far, no heat-related issues. Good luck with yours. I hope I helped...

 

[kipper]

Not familiar with your Dell chassis but you might be able to MOD the case to accommodate extra fans. Templates for the different size fans are available on line so if you are handy with a dremel, drill, and small files you could most likely solve your project.

 

[pparks1]

A Dell chassis? What the heck dell chassis is going to come close to holding 15 hard drives? You got an equilogic chassis or something????

edit: went back and looked at your post Coke and I don't see where you mention a Dell chassis. So maybe the other poster doesn't actually know what type of case you are going to try to use. For a massive build out like this, I cannot think of a single Dell chassis that would be a good fit or come close to being large enough.

 

[kipper]

You are right pparks, OP did not mention a Dell chassis or any chassis. So, looking at his system specs is where that came from.

I was hoping he/she would come back with more information and we could go from there.

 

[Coke Robot]

Oh, I'll clarify. It will be a modded Dell XPS 600 case. Another piece of a Dell Dimension case will be used and welded onto the bottom to accommodate the PSU and most likely fans, maybe a watercooling tank/radiator. That's still in the works.

 

[pparks1]

Oh, I'll clarify. It will be a modded Dell XPS 600 case. Another piece of a Dell Dimension case will be used and welded onto the bottom to accommodate the PSU and most likely fans, maybe a watercooling tank/radiator. That's still in the works.

I hate to ask, but why not purchase a new huge tower style case which could hold your equipment ? Unless you have awesome fabrication skills, it seems like your case would not be terribly attractive based on what you have described thus far.

 

[Coke Robot]

Oh, I'll clarify. It will be a modded Dell XPS 600 case. Another piece of a Dell Dimension case will be used and welded onto the bottom to accommodate the PSU and most likely fans, maybe a watercooling tank/radiator. That's still in the works.

I hate to ask, but why not purchase a new huge tower style case which could hold your equipment ? Unless you have awesome fabrication skills, it seems like your case would not be terribly attractive based on what you have described thus far.

Hate the standard ATX towers and they look fugly and overdone and too black for me.

No, from what I've designed, the case will be modern looking, unique, and reflective of the Windows 8.

 

[Coke Robot]

I should also mention about the case esthetics, it's not going to be bare metal on the exterior. I'll be using/modding the plastic shell on the Dell case and adding acrylic sheets to bulk it up a bit for how the design will be, along with epoxy resin like Bondo. Basically, I can cover up a shoddy fabrication job.

 

[Coke Robot]

My experience with putting many hard drives in a case is that they are the primary source of heat, not the CPU or GPU or chipset, etc... I put fans in front, fans in the rear, fans at the bottom (case goes on a wire rack) and exhaust fans at the top. I also keep my server (5 x 2TB WD 7200rpm Caviar Black drives for a total of 10TB) in the basement, in the pantry, on a shelf where the temp stays cool all year. I also recommend a quality power supply (which is obvious) as they can really generate heat, especially the cheap ones. I tried the hard drive coolers that attach to the drives and they were all garbage and were not effective at all... I use 120mm ThermalTake fans and I put a Scotch pad in front of the front fan, behind the case's bezel to trap the dust and I clean them regularly.so far, no heat-related issues. Good luck with yours. I hope I helped...

How much airflow do you guess the 120mm fans pull with the filter on them? I'm kind of concerned as I've found an image of the hard drive cage without the fan on the back that shows a pretty small opening for the air to pass through. Also, I'm kind of iffy about how I'm planning to setup the air intake for the cages as it seems like the fans will suffocate or something...

 

[azasadny]

78cfm at 36dba

Thermaltakeusa » DC Fan » 120mm Fans » DuraMax 12 : DuraMax 12 AF0060

 

[bobkn]

A 3GB WDC Caviar Red drive draws 4.4W maximum (read/write.) A 4GB Caviar Black, a little over 10W. The highest number I recall is less than 12W.

Somehow the thought of providing 10W of cooling per drive isn't daunting, if you aren't trying for a fanless system.

Please post picture of the system after it's built. My initial impression was that it'd look like something that would inspire you to shout "It's alive!" when it is first powered up, ala Victor Frankenstein, but maybe it'll be a good sort of monster.

 

[azasadny]

The ThermalTake fans I posted the spec about run very efficiently and quietly. I run them in my main PC and my Windows Home Server. As I mentioned, I have 5x2TB WD Caviar Black drives for a total of 10TB and the drives stay cool (below 101 degrees F).