Case for 4-5+ Hard Drives

One Man Band · 2 Jan 2006 at 02:04

Hello.

Can anyone advise me on a suitable tower to hold 5 or more hard drives. I'm hoping to build a PC for video editing and need a lot of hard disk space. My current PC (Not built by me) has four hard discs inside. Three are in the drive bays as normal, and one is in a cooling thing. The fourth had to be put on the floor of the tower (!).

I've seen cases on Overclockers that seem suitable for a lot of hard discs, but should I be worried about cooling them all?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've also posted a similar question about a suitable motherboard for a lot of HD's in the Motherboard forum.

Thanks.

SiriusB · 2 Jan 2006 at 02:52

Coolermaster Stacker

HDDs go into a HDD block [one comes with the case] and each block can hold 4 HDDs and has its own 120mm fan too. No worries their about cooling. You can also buy extra HDD blocks too. You should note each block takes 3 drive bays each. The Stacker has 11 Bays so you won't be going short unless you plan on having a million CD/DVD-ROMs

SiriusB

Mindless_Moron · 2 Jan 2006 at 04:20

i disagree stacker is a bad choice, the 3-4 module just toasts hdd's. look at a silverstone tj07, lian li v1/2000 or an antec p180.

NickK · 2 Jan 2006 at 09:55

Mindless_Moron said:
i disagree stacker is a bad choice, the 3-4 module just toasts hdd's. look at a silverstone tj07, lian li v1/2000 or an antec p180.

I have a stacker with three 4in3 modules with seven drives in it. It's the best case for hard drive cooling I know.

The heat output from the drives is fine with raid5 - even during an array expansion where all the drives are working flat out to reshape the array.
Yes the heat output is high from the case with that many drives, so positioning the case is important as any room soon heats up.

Just remember to clean the filters every month and it'll be fine for your needs.

Randell Floyd · 2 Jan 2006 at 11:57

I too have a staker with 6+ HDD's.

I went for 3 x 4in3 moduels so that I could have 3 120mm fans cooling not only the HDDs but also the rest of the case.

What I have found to be a massive factor in heat for the HDD, is the actual HDD itslef. For instance my current speedfan reading are, with everything idle as such:

CPU : 27oc
Case : 28oc
Northbridge : 29oc
Samsung 250g : 18oc
Raptor 74gb : 20oc
7200.8 200gb : 22oc
Maxtor 250gb : 27oc

The two 320gb WD are on a JBOD so dont have a temp reading for them both.

I have positiond all the drives in all three cage locations and the temp reading difference is roughly the same everytime. So as you can see the Samsung has roughly a 10oc operating difference to the Maxtor, so take that into consideration when purchasing a case and HDD.

NickK · 2 Jan 2006 at 12:28

Randell Floyd said:
I have positiond all the drives in all three cage locations and the temp reading difference is roughly the same everytime. So as you can see the Samsung has roughly a 10oc operating difference to the Maxtor, so take that into consideration when purchasing a case and HDD.

I'd agree 100% with that. My six Maxtors kick out more heat than the Samsung system drive when idling.

Gavin · 2 Jan 2006 at 13:39

hmm i just got some seagates on the pretense they run cool, i hope so? eek

woodsy2k · 3 Jan 2006 at 13:18

Lian Li for the win. V2000 has 12 HDD mounting bays, and then if you really want uber storage, get some 5.25" -> 3.5" converters and slap more in any of the 7 5.25" bays. Cooling is fine i find.

Ricochet J · 3 Jan 2006 at 14:54

You want this, a Lian Li PC71. Brilliant case, you can buy side windows, bezels nearly everything you need for it. Plenty of space to fit 10 HDDs. Brilliant cooling solutions. Highly recommeneded.

One Man Band · 21 Jan 2006 at 00:44

I went for the Antec Sonata II. I needed something cheaper and it also has it's own PSU. Hopefully, the PSU will power everything until I need to add extra HD's

Well Splattered · 21 Jan 2006 at 23:24

YY Server cube, keep all the drives away from hot CPU, chipset and gfx cards.

Ok, the wiring is not tidy but my temps are always below 40c according to SMART and mbm. Two fans at the back directly behind hard drives aid cooling if you have them on.

Room for eight drives at the back of case with all caddies fitted and two more at the top of the optical bays.

The case is no taller than a Midi tower.

Velocity219e · 25 Jan 2006 at 14:12

Gavin said:
hmm i just got some seagates on the pretense they run cool, i hope so? eek

I have a 210b with four Seagate barracuda V's and a Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9
in (along with requisite optical stuffs) and I've not got any cooling at all on them, they've been running happily for quite some time.

the Four 'cuda's are one on top of another with a centimeter spacing between, then the Maxtor up way above the optical stuff near the top of the case, it gets damned hot, more than once at work after doing a high speed ghost write I've burned myself on the maxtor disks :O