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Been years since I've dabbled in case modding - but this one was kind of a necessity. Figured it may be useful for others with an NSK3480 who run into issues mounting a second (or third) HDD with real estate limitations. The external 3.5" cage isn't very suitable for mounting a harddrive, since the two mounting holes available either result in the drive sticking out through the front, or too far back interrupting the cable slot holes to the PSU compartment. I could have simply drilled a new hole in the cage, but wanted to leave the case as pristine as possible (I know, sacrilege!) so I opted for another option.
The bottom HDD mount didn't work for me unmodified, since my HD 4860's cooling unit protrudes too far down, plus the Gigabyte Mobo has the PCI-E card on the 2nd slot from the top. Although technically the HDD could have fit, it would be been basically flush to the underside of the fan, so I doubt it would have allowed for any air to pass through.
This modification worked for me, but probably not for all. The position and height of the CPU cooler is a factor, and also the width of your PCI-E cards. The concept is to create an angle bracket to mount the drive vertically in the space available between the PCI-E cards and the side panel.
I was originally going to start with a 1/8" thick aluminum base, and then drill and tap for the case screws but I dug up an old Seagate HDD and dismantled it to salvage the base. Since the mounting holes for the NSK3480 match the HDD holes, this was a nice way to take advantage of the already tapped holes in the old HDD, and avoid having drill/tap misalignments down the road. Here's the dismantled Seagate HDD:
Here's the top and bottom of the aluminum base of the old HDD with the tapped holes that I'm going to utilize:
I cut an L-bracket from some 3/32" thick aluminum sheet (11 Ga), drilled matching holes in both the bracket and the aluminum base for riveting. There are also 4 holes drilled in the vertical leg of the bracket to secure the actual HDD:
Here's the HDD mounted onto the bracket and base assembly:
Here are two photos of my setup showing how little vertical clearance there is from the bottom of the case to the underside of the HD 4860's cooling unit:
This is a shot of the stock HDD mount plate on the NSK3480. There are four silicon isolators which are to be screwed through from the underside and help dampen vibration.
Now it's simply a matter of securing the assembly to the case via the silicon isolators and four mounting holes through the bottom of the case:
Hope someone will find this useful. It's an extremely sturdy mount, and still retains the silicon isolators to prevent vibration against the case.
The bottom HDD mount didn't work for me unmodified, since my HD 4860's cooling unit protrudes too far down, plus the Gigabyte Mobo has the PCI-E card on the 2nd slot from the top. Although technically the HDD could have fit, it would be been basically flush to the underside of the fan, so I doubt it would have allowed for any air to pass through.
This modification worked for me, but probably not for all. The position and height of the CPU cooler is a factor, and also the width of your PCI-E cards. The concept is to create an angle bracket to mount the drive vertically in the space available between the PCI-E cards and the side panel.
I was originally going to start with a 1/8" thick aluminum base, and then drill and tap for the case screws but I dug up an old Seagate HDD and dismantled it to salvage the base. Since the mounting holes for the NSK3480 match the HDD holes, this was a nice way to take advantage of the already tapped holes in the old HDD, and avoid having drill/tap misalignments down the road. Here's the dismantled Seagate HDD:
Here's the top and bottom of the aluminum base of the old HDD with the tapped holes that I'm going to utilize:
I cut an L-bracket from some 3/32" thick aluminum sheet (11 Ga), drilled matching holes in both the bracket and the aluminum base for riveting. There are also 4 holes drilled in the vertical leg of the bracket to secure the actual HDD:
Here's the HDD mounted onto the bracket and base assembly:
Here are two photos of my setup showing how little vertical clearance there is from the bottom of the case to the underside of the HD 4860's cooling unit:
This is a shot of the stock HDD mount plate on the NSK3480. There are four silicon isolators which are to be screwed through from the underside and help dampen vibration.
Now it's simply a matter of securing the assembly to the case via the silicon isolators and four mounting holes through the bottom of the case:
Hope someone will find this useful. It's an extremely sturdy mount, and still retains the silicon isolators to prevent vibration against the case.
