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Ok, I'm not sure if this would go in the mods forum or here but I figured since it pertained to HDDs that it'd be appropriate here. But, in the off chance its not please move it for me. Thank you.
Anyway, since my fan controller (the 3rd one in about 8 months died) and I am now again in the market for a new fan controller I've decided. The interior of my case is getting cluttered with various components.
I've never really like the idea of having my HDDs inside the case. For one, they take up unecessary room that could be used for other things. Two, they take up bays again that could be used to hide wires or other devices. If they are in an HDD cage at teh bottom of the case they obstruct air flow.
So, I've decided that they don't necessarily need to be in a case and could be remotely located on the outside of the case somewhere.
But it poses yet another problem. How to secure them to the outside of the case and run wires to them without them looking ugly and ghetto.
Well, my solution is this. Since I run SATA drives and the flat red cables for the SATA drives are kind of stylish I could run them along the outside of the case in protective sleeving and fasten them to the case to prevent them from being bumped or pulled at.
But, what to do with the HDD's themselves and how to get the SATA cables from inside the case to the outside.
Thats where my motherboard comes in.
See, the Asus A8N Sli Premium comes with a little SATA hub specifically designed for external HDD's. My plan is to run the back hub to SATA 1 and SATA 2 on the mobo along with the power cable. Then, come out the back of the case (or front of the hub) with the two SATA cables and the power cable up the back of the case to the top where I'll have made a plexiglass "holder" for the drives. I'll paint the holder so that you can't see through it.
So, here's pictures of the hub and the power cable and the SATA cables.
Now, the case I'll be working with is the Chenbro Gaming Bomb 2 unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of it and I'm not about to bogart someone elses bandwidth to get one so I'm sure you can Google it for a pic.
The one thing I can forsee myself having a problem making is the holder since I've never shaped plexi with heat and thats what I plan on doing. I can also, if I have to cut the plexi into squares and use some carbon fiber that I have laying around and actually create a box. But the idea is to put the box or holder on the back of the case underneath the rear handle of the case.
I've taken some pictures of the handle as it does come off so what I'm thinking of doing is laying the piece of plexi inside it, heating it up with the torch then bending it to match the curvature of the handle so that it fits underneath it.
Now, the dimensions of the HDD are 5.5" long by 4" wide by 1" tall.
The space in between the handle is 8 1/4" so I have enough room to mount both HDDs side by side since I'm only using 1/8" plexi. Height is good as well since its 1 1/2" from the inside bottom of the handle to the top of the case.
I can see an issue with the length of the HDDs they are 5 1/2" long. I have two 120mm blow hole fans set next to each other on the top of the case so, fromt he back of the case to the very edge of the first blowhole fan is 5". What I'm thinking is raise the HDD's off of the bottom of the case a little bit to allow for airflow from the blow hole to pass under the HDDs and out the back. Since they HDDs will be outside the case I don't expect them to head up that much if any. Inside the case they tend to get hot.
I'll most likely do some mock ups tomorrow. But since I don't have any dead SATA HDD's I may have to make a mockup HDD or two before I begin any real work.
Any pointers any of you can give me on molding plexi glass with a torch would be great since this will be the first time I'm attempting anything like this.
Anyway, since my fan controller (the 3rd one in about 8 months died) and I am now again in the market for a new fan controller I've decided. The interior of my case is getting cluttered with various components.
I've never really like the idea of having my HDDs inside the case. For one, they take up unecessary room that could be used for other things. Two, they take up bays again that could be used to hide wires or other devices. If they are in an HDD cage at teh bottom of the case they obstruct air flow.
So, I've decided that they don't necessarily need to be in a case and could be remotely located on the outside of the case somewhere.
But it poses yet another problem. How to secure them to the outside of the case and run wires to them without them looking ugly and ghetto.
Well, my solution is this. Since I run SATA drives and the flat red cables for the SATA drives are kind of stylish I could run them along the outside of the case in protective sleeving and fasten them to the case to prevent them from being bumped or pulled at.
But, what to do with the HDD's themselves and how to get the SATA cables from inside the case to the outside.
Thats where my motherboard comes in.
See, the Asus A8N Sli Premium comes with a little SATA hub specifically designed for external HDD's. My plan is to run the back hub to SATA 1 and SATA 2 on the mobo along with the power cable. Then, come out the back of the case (or front of the hub) with the two SATA cables and the power cable up the back of the case to the top where I'll have made a plexiglass "holder" for the drives. I'll paint the holder so that you can't see through it.
So, here's pictures of the hub and the power cable and the SATA cables.
Now, the case I'll be working with is the Chenbro Gaming Bomb 2 unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of it and I'm not about to bogart someone elses bandwidth to get one so I'm sure you can Google it for a pic.
The one thing I can forsee myself having a problem making is the holder since I've never shaped plexi with heat and thats what I plan on doing. I can also, if I have to cut the plexi into squares and use some carbon fiber that I have laying around and actually create a box. But the idea is to put the box or holder on the back of the case underneath the rear handle of the case.
I've taken some pictures of the handle as it does come off so what I'm thinking of doing is laying the piece of plexi inside it, heating it up with the torch then bending it to match the curvature of the handle so that it fits underneath it.
Now, the dimensions of the HDD are 5.5" long by 4" wide by 1" tall.
The space in between the handle is 8 1/4" so I have enough room to mount both HDDs side by side since I'm only using 1/8" plexi. Height is good as well since its 1 1/2" from the inside bottom of the handle to the top of the case.
I can see an issue with the length of the HDDs they are 5 1/2" long. I have two 120mm blow hole fans set next to each other on the top of the case so, fromt he back of the case to the very edge of the first blowhole fan is 5". What I'm thinking is raise the HDD's off of the bottom of the case a little bit to allow for airflow from the blow hole to pass under the HDDs and out the back. Since they HDDs will be outside the case I don't expect them to head up that much if any. Inside the case they tend to get hot.
I'll most likely do some mock ups tomorrow. But since I don't have any dead SATA HDD's I may have to make a mockup HDD or two before I begin any real work.
Any pointers any of you can give me on molding plexi glass with a torch would be great since this will be the first time I'm attempting anything like this.