Good case for HDD cooling

[Hito Bahadur]

Guys,

I tore open my Media server the other day (Sempron 3000+ S754 with 5HDDs ~1TB of storage) and realized the HDDs were hotter than I am comfortable with.

The case has good general cooling Antec Solution 1650B but no place to blow fans over the HDDs.

Can anyone recommend such a case? I'm looking to house at least my 5 HDDs (bonus if it could hold 8).

Form factor is not an issue, but mini or mid tower is preferable. Looking for a case of the same or better quality as the current system (good quality).

 

[Megalomaniac]

i would say that the p180 or a lian li 1000 are what you need.
both can do 6 drives i believe.
the p180 can do it a bit better.

 

[Hito Bahadur]

Not certain why this got moved to case modding. It doesn't have anything to do with modding.....lol. I guess this is half the right place.

Anyways. So far, very impressed with the build quality of the P180 (ordered Sunday from chiefvalue for $129.98 shipped and arrived on Tuesday). Just taking the case apart. I will report later when the computer is built on how the P180 turned out for this MCE server.

 

[Hito Bahadur]

Final update (maybe):

Got the system moved over. I think the total system is about the same noise (I have all 3 120 mm fans running at highest speed). The only mod to the system was to remove one of the 120mm 3-speed fans and replace it with a blue LED thermaltake fan. I though the top vent could use a little color behind the shroud, otherwise it looks a little dumb. A little noisier this way, so I may mod the fan to 7V later.

Letting the system get up to temperature to see if I have fixed the hot HDD problem (cool to the touch after an hour of normal operation). There's definately more air flow, but I'm interested to see how the compartmentalized section works.

I have to say I was very impressed with the quality of the case. The material for the doors is sturdy yet doesn't seem to tranfer sounds as much as pure metal, the bushings for HDD mounts are substantial, the HDD cages are very well made and I like how the PSU is mounted. Cabling was a bit more difficult than usual, but hopefully worth it, and I still have room to add 2 more DVD-ROMs and 1 more HDD if I had the SATA/IDE connection (only 1 connection left on the Mobo).

System specs:
Case: Antec P180B
Mobo: MSI K8N Neo V1.0
CPU: 3000+ Sempron S754 (Palermo) @ 1.89Ghz, 1.2V
GPU: MSI NVIDIA Geforce 6200
TVcard: Hauppage WinTV PVR PCI II
Memory: 512MB DDR 400 (don't remember brand)
PSU: Seasonic S12 330W
HDD1: 40GB IDE
HDD2: 250GB Samsung Spinpoint P 7200RPM SATA2
HDD3: 250GB Samsung Spinpoint P 7200RPM SATA2
HDD4: 250GB Samsung Spinpoint P 7200RPM SATA2
HDD5: 300GB Maxtor 7200RPM SATA
DVD1: NEC DVD reader
DVD2: Lite-on 8x DVD-R/RW DL

Turned out fairly clean:

Just a bit bigger than its old case:

edit: to update status of HDD cooling.

 

[hartman]

From looking at the pictures, your old case could've been easily modded to fit a fan in front of the HD cage. If that little tab coming down from the 5.25 cage is all the holds the HD cage in place, you could have simply drilled a new hole further forward on the HD cage, which would allow the HD cage to be mounted farther towards the back, which would give you room in front for a fan.

 

[Hito Bahadur]

I had space issues, the back of the HDDs were already starting to overlap the power and IDE connectors on the mobo. The 1/2-3/4" I would have needed for that mod would have put me right up against the CPU. Great idea though. I needed a new case anyways though, I have 2 3800+ X2s running naked at the moment.