Thursday, September 2, 2010

HOT SUMMER - Some accessories to keep hard drive cool / OR external Rack Mounts?

 

127956c7.jpg picture by linkai8424

It's getting tooooo hot for the past two weeks, especially when I need to cook something (yeah, my PC is in the living room with an open kitchen next to it). And I have six hard drives in one of my PC, maybe HTPC in some loose definition. The PC has been used as recording/playing back HDTV and storing pure DVDISOs AND BDMV/Blu-ray ISOs (go fuxk DVDrips!). So I finally made the move, changing to a new case. The new case is a cooler master centurion 5 (now this machine is in cooler master , got it for free last year. The case is pretty easy to install, but I was only able to fit four hard drives into the 3.5'' space without using any 5.25'' HD mount. Due to the concern of the cooling of the hard drives, I bought a Lian Li EX-23NB Internal HDD kit (shown above, turns 2 x 5.25" bay into 3 x 3.5" bay) and has a fan and anti-vibration mount, pretty neat. The price is $19.99, not ridiculously too expensive (and considering I got the case for free, I didn't hesitate to buy this one). So now my new case has 6 hard drives in it, and the cooling condition is better than the old FOXXCON one. I'm content right now...

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Other hard drive cooling devices:

Lian Li EX-34B Internal HDD Kit (turns 3 x 5.25" bay into 4 x 3.5" bay) for $35.

Cheaper one is:

Cooler Master STB-3T4-E3-GP 4-in-3 Device Module (turns 3 x 5.25" bay into 4 x 3.5" bays) for $25, but this one is currently out of stock at most of the places.

I have also used something like this, but they don't work nicely, the fans are too small and too loud...

Lastly, if internal doesn't work out, you can always get external enclosure...

A good informative source for building HTPC, especially those hard drive arrays.

2009.12.28 update:

SO I got another one of these.

 

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Upon doing further research, I've also found Lian-Li EX-H34B which converts 3 x 5.25" to 4 x 3.5" bays AND provides direct hotswapping via the front panel. Still need extra controller card or free SATA connectors from MB though. The back SATA board merely do SATA->SATA conversion I think. And this one give only one molex power connector to all four SATA drive, might be some problem for power hungry drivers? But since it's from Lian-Li, I would expect better quality than other ones.

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