Hardware: HDD & Case Queries

[tomos]

Question #1:
I have two 2.5" HDDs and they are in this casing with about 6mm between them (less than a quarter inch). Do you think is that enough spacing, or should I look for a better solution?
Note the only fan is back of case (this towards the front). It's not a good case for extra HDDs :-(



I was even thinking of trying to rotate the frame that the drives are in by 90° (on the long axis) so as the heat could go up. (Would need to bore a hole for that though, could be messy.)

Would also like to discuss case recommendations (maybe I should make a separate thread for that?) -- cable management is such a pita in my very limited experience. Reviews, even of expensive cases almost always say, great case, problems with cable management...

[Shades]

Usually, the bracket in which the HDDs are mounted is a bit receded from the front, so an (extra) case fan fits. Those are easy to come by, easy to replace etc. It is better to use "active" cooling when drives are mounted this close.

You used to have brackets for 5,25" bays that allowed you to mount a 3,5" hard disk in them. I'm sure those can be used to mount a 2,5" drive into a 3,5" drive bay. That solves your problem too. Then there is much less  to no need for extra "active" cooling.

I see you use those red SATA cables. Replace those with decent SATA cables, you will do yourself a big favor with that.

[tomos]

I see you use those red SATA cables. Replace those with decent SATA cables, you will do yourself a big favor with that.

Will do

You used to have brackets for 5,25" bays that allowed you to mount a 3,5" hard disk in them. I'm sure those can be used to mount a 2,5" drive into a 3,5" drive bay. That solves your problem too. Then there is much less  to no need for extra "active" cooling.

There's only one 3.5" bay and it's unusable the way it's designed. There's space for one 2.5" HD (it's not even a proper bay)
EDIT// it's a while since I added that bracket - it's 3.5" to 2.5" bracket //EDIT
so I mounted a bracket that fits two HDDs onto that. The case is really designed for one sata HD (and whatever you can fit on the motherboard (one SSD in my case)

[mouser]

The top HD is a 2TB HD -- the solution that jumps out to me is to replace it (and any other HD of similar size) with an SSD.  Less heat, much faster, takes up less space.

[tomos]

I should have numbered these.
Cross sections of how the harddrive should be installed; how it is (how *they* are); and how they could work better heatwise:

[tomos]

The top HD is a 2TB HD -- the solution that jumps out to me is to replace it (and any other HD of similar size) with an SSD.  Less heat, much faster, takes up less space.

That's 300€ at least (2 X 2TB), here at any rate. I'm slow to spend that much just because of heat... (don't otherwise need SSDs for my use case)

[mouser]

I hear ya.  I do worry about hard drive temperatures.  One thing you could do is install one of the programs that monitors hard drive temperatures in the background, and will show them in the system tray and show an alert if they rise above a certain temperature.  There are some good free and paid apps that do that.

[tomos]

^ will do that.

Had another hardware approach / idea -- there's holes in the bottom of the case, I could add another bracket, sideways, screwed into the floor of the PC. See sketch looking at open case from the side:



As said, this case is no good for multiple HDDs, so, medium term I'll be looking maybe at buying a decent case and trying to build something myself (will be a first).

This case can then revert to being a one SSD pc...

[Shades]

Many, many moons ago, I bought a set of written off computer equipment from the US embassy here in PY. One was a server that had 7 (SCSI) CD players in it. Stripped out the motherboard and drives out of it, my interest was the case. Mounted a much more modern motherboard in it and put in 5 HDDs, one to boot from, which is in the only HDD slot, the rest of the drives went into the section where all the CD drives used to be.

But those are 5.25" devices and HDDs are 3,5". The CD drives had no use for me, so I dismantled all of them completely. The external housing was then cut up to make the 3,5" drives fit, but not so much that it would not fit the 5,25" bays anymore. The server is 10+ years in operation.

If you have an old CD/DVD player that you aren't using anymore, you can strip all the hardware out of it and mount both 2,5" drives sideways in it, much farther away from each other, with no need to actively cooling the drives. Still, in case you consider active cooling, you could cut and bend parts of the metal, so that you can screw a case fan (upright) onto it. And then mount the contraption inside the case through holes in the bottom (or top) of this case.

If there are holes in the bottom of the case, those could be there for air flow into the case. If you think that is the purpose of these holes, don't block these.

Quite a "hobby" project, but as long as it works (and it is out of sight), who really cares?

[4wd]

The top drive is 5400rpm, what's the bottom drive?

If the bottom is 7200 or 10k rpm then move it to the top and think about putting a case fan mounted on the case to the right, (so it blows air between them). A slow rpm 12cm fan will be all that's needed.

If they're both 5400rpm then I personally wouldn't worry about it unless they're consistently running at higher than about 35°.

BTW, the top drive doesn't appear to have mounting screws on the side we can see?

Any chance of a photo from the left angled towards the front, (to give a better idea of the mounting points)?

Also BTW, if you want a Simple No Holes Required Mounting Solution:



As long as the computer isn't moved around often, (eg. dragging it along to LAN night), this'll be fine.

For a case, if you're only looking to have 2x2.5" + 2x3.5" (no 5.25") then the Thermaltake Versa H17 or H18 isn't too bad, (I have the H18). Cheap and one of the smaller mATX cases, (honestly, most mATX cases these days are bigger than my old ATX mid-tower).
Also done a couple of builds in the Silverstone Temjin 08 case, they can take more drives and are slightly smaller.

:P

[tomos]

BTW, the top drive doesn't appear to have mounting screws on the side we can see?

I knew I wasnt happy with the solution so didnt fix it.

Your suggestion
looks like it will work. Will have to get a pliers to the shelf for the top drive -- to move it down a fraction so as the screw holes line up. Will report back

[tomos]

Your suggestion
looks like it will work. Will have to get a pliers to the shelf for the top drive -- to move it down a fraction so as the screw holes line up. Will report back

So, looking good (enough :p)
and working fine, with no funny sounds




(bracket not yet fixed in place in this photo)