Fractal Meshify C - 3.5" HDD Question

[Double07]

Just got a Meshify C and all put together fine, everything seems great except for my 3.5" drive which sounds loud. Now my PC for quite some time has basically just been lying about on a desk basically in bits with nothing screwed into a case, etc so I don't have any comparison except for yonks ago and thats probably pointless.

Ive fitted the drive into the bracket, put the screws through the rubber grommets and into the hard drive, and mounted it in the HDD cage in its default position. Whenever the drive is being used its loud, particularly when its writing data and its very noticeable, an audible thud. Now I know it's a mechanical drive and itll make some noise but does anyone else have a similar experience with this case? I know its prone be being a bit more noisy given the construction of the case but it does feel a bit excessive, particularly when the its so quiet when the drive isn't spun up.

Its a 6TB Segate Ironwolf 7200rpm NAS drive (yes its not in a NAS I know but I got it very cheap at the time). When its not in use, and the drive powers down as part of the power profile then the PC is whisper quiet, HDD kicks in a woosh.

I am considering just getting a USB external enclosure for it (anyone can comment if these are any good, its just a storage drive so speeds arent the primary concern) and having it outside the case as I can then put it more out of earshot. I do intend to simply have SSDs once I can afford a 1TB (currently have 2 smaller ones in there) as I've just spent a fair bit on other bits and bobs recently.

I know I could get a cheap NAS and actually use it as it was intended but thats another question

Cheers

 

[Double07]

Ignore me, I've faffed around and its just the normal noise of the hard drive and me being overly sensitive to it, Ill get used to it. And get a NAS in due course.

 

[Pulse]

I do have a few questions about this case as I've been trying to decide between it and the CoolerMaster Q500L, if you could answer them?

One was about the harddrive mounting actually: the rubber grommets used for the 3.5" drive, are they bottom mounted into the harddrive? And do the harddrive trays have spacing for 2.5" drives? I'm not too keen on mounting them behind the motherboard.

How is the cooling and the noise from stock?

 

[Double07]

I do have a few questions about this case as I've been trying to decide between it and the CoolerMaster Q500L, if you could answer them?

One was about the harddrive mounting actually: the rubber grommets used for the 3.5" drive, are they bottom mounted into the harddrive? And do the harddrive trays have spacing for 2.5" drives? I'm not too keen on mounting them behind the motherboard.

How is the cooling and the noise from stock?

Yes the rubber grommets mount into the underside of the HDD, four screws, and then this slides into the mounting caddy. You can install 2.5" drives in the HDD caddy, and holes are already drilled into the 2 brackets so you can just screw them straight in. I would say its much easier to mount them on the back of the motherabord though as there is a faceplace that just clips out and cable management is much easier from there, but the options are both equally viable.

I have a Ryzen 2600 (no overclock) and a bog standard Evo 212 cooler and the temps are very good. I can idle at sub 30C which is pretty mad. Gaming it pretty much never goes above 60C. I ran handbrake yesterday for 3.5 hours converting files, so c90% CPU usage the whole time and it never topped 60C. At these temps my fans never go above 50% (Custom fan curves). As a test I just ran 3 runs of cinebench R20 and then Small FFT test in Prime 95 for 20 minutes, so pretty much 100% CPU usage all the time. I put the fans, 1 x CPU and the 2 stock case fans, at 75% which was around 1000rpm and the temps didnt go above 49C.

The trade off is that the case isn't going to be silent given the amount of airflow. I sit less than 2ft from the case and when Im idling, with fans set to around 600rpm until 50C it is very quiet, but it's not going to be silent. If the case is even slightly further away it does become all but silent though. When the fans are around 50%, say when gaming for a while then you really wouldnt be able to hear a thing given that you are playing a game. Even sitting with them on 50% just now and just idling its still very quiet. You just need to remember that the case is open at the front as well as the back so its never going to be as quiet as the very quietest cases out there, but then it's not supposed to be.

All in all I really like the case, the temperatures are superb (bear in mind I live in Scotland and I dont have the heating on just now so the ambient temperature isnt exactly toasty but you get the point!). The dark tempered glass is dark though so bear that in mind. i like it as its a more subtle look, but you can get it with lighter tinted glass, or just a window. The Q500L is smaller so you would expect it to be slightly worse in terms of temps/cooling but then again it is quite a bit cheaper.

Anything else, just ask.

**EDIT**

I have just realised that my memory had defaulted back to 2133Mhz and when I've bumped it back to 3000Mhz @ 1.35V the temps have gone up by around 3-5C for each of those stated above. Bear this in mind as the above temps are probably slightly under-representative of my actual system given that I hadnt realised my memory had defaulted back down. Not a big difference I know but I thought it best to state.

 

[havenrl]

Nice review there.
For my upgrade to Ryzen, I'm getting a new case, downsizing from the Define R4, to at the moment, Define C TG.
Exactly the same apart from the front cover.