Hard Drive cooling?

[syukton]

Right now I use a Zalman ZM-2HC2 heatpipe cooler on both of my hard drives (both Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA drives) I additionally have some drive bay coolers consisting of 3 40mm fans blowing over these drives. Do you think this is excessive...or not?

I ask because I'm running into some other heat-related issues and as a result I am looking to free up those two adjacent 5.25" drive bays for a single 80mm fan to help get more cool air inside my case. Would the drives be fine in the normal spot for internal 3.5" drives with an 80mm fan blowing over them? What kind of cooling do you implement for your drives in your main PC?

 

[unhappy_mage]

What kind of cooling do you have, and what case? I might look into replacing the case entirely, especially if it's a $40 one - a Lian-li is an upgrade beyond belief.

In any case, an 80 mm fan may well be enough cooling, but my suggestion would be "try it and see". Put everything where you want it, run it for a while, and see if the drives are warm to the touch (or, god forbid, hot...).

 

[syukton]

Well, what's a good Lian-Li case where airflow is concerned? I am currently using a cheapie $40 case, yeah...

 

[unhappy_mage]

The PC-6 series is nice; removable motherboard tray FTW The PC-60USB would be my specific recommendation. 80mm fan on top, room for 2 in front, RMT, plenty of modding possibilities. But anything that starts with PC-6 is probably a good choice.