My HDD suspension mounting idea

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:53 am

I've been thinking about a way to suspend my 2 hard drives (a 60GB 'cuda V and a 120GB 'cuda 7200.7) for a while now, and have gone through several different ideas on paper. Here is the latest one which I think I'll implement in the next couple of months. I haven't started building it yet, but I thought I'd share the sketch with everybody to get some feedback. Full credit must go to Aphonos for his 2 drive suspension system, which I have borrowed some ideas from. My most important consideration was cooling (my HDDs are the most important components on my system), as I wanted to keep noise and fan speed right down. But I didn't want temps to go up when decoupling and losing the "heatsink" effect of the mounting brackets that HDDs normally use.

These are my main design considerations:

Have the suspension elastic attached to the case above and below the hard drives so I can tension it a bit, to prevent too much movement
Maximise hard drive cooling by having them directly in the airflow of the front case fan, but not blocking it at all
Direct mount the HDDs on the mounting brackets to help dissipate heat
Use the box created by the two hard drives and the mounting brackets as a duct, to duct the air further into the PC (towards the graphics card)
Possibly mount the intake fan on the rear or this assembly so it is further inside the case, thereby reducing noise and directing air more efficiently towards graphics card

One thing I've thought of: Is this a truly de-coupled setup? As the HDDs are direct mounted onto the brackets, won't they resonate even though they are de-coupled from the rest of the case?

Another idea I had was to angle the whole thing upwards a bit rather than just the fan so it directs the airflow towards the graphics card better. But I don't think I've got enough room inside my case.

Feel free to try some of these ideas before I get around to it myself! I'll post my results and photos here when I've done it, but don't hold your breath!

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:36 am

Doesn't anybody have any comments?

Tell me you hate it! It's rubbish, whatever. Just not this stony cold silence, I need somebody to talk to!

ruprag · Post by **ruprag** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:41 am

I like it, but it would not work for me since I have a WD80Gb

Do you think it would be possible to use some sort of a hdd-enclosure and still pull this stunt ?

(I really like the rear alternate fan location since my NB temps are 54C currently

pingu666 · Post by **pingu666** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 10:06 am

i like the idea
ive got something similer
i would improve it but my pcs heat my room atm
very cold in the uk atm

jerryk · Post by **jerryk** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 1:18 pm

Would you get better drive cooling if you mounted the drives so that the air blew on top and bottom of the drive? From your drawing it looks like the air will only go above or below the drive.

j

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 1:25 pm

What are your hard drive temps now, do you know and yes maybe if you could get some blow on th hd too. :}

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 1:28 pm

The conventional fan location will probably give you better cooling, simply because it ensures that ALL the air the fan is sucking in from the outside will go across the drives. I think it matters not whether the airflows only across one side of the drive; cooling is still effected & it will affect the internal temp regardless.

Not sure if your duct is really needed tho. The drives are close enough to the fan that most of the airflow will go across the HDD surface regardless of whether the duct is there. If there is room, you don't even need the elasitc; just set the whole assembly on foam that compresses a bit but not all the way (with the weight on top). That usually gives the same level of decoupling as suspension.

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 12:08 am

I think HDD temps would be fine with this setup, as the air blowing over one surface only plus the heatsink effect of the mounting brackets should be more than enough. It will certainly be better than my current setup, with the HDDs higher up and not directly in the airflow at all. They run at 40-43 deg C at the mo, and I'm hoping this system will bring that down a bit.

The ducting idea was more of an afterthought really, just to direct the air closer to the graphics card (my whole strategy is to direct airflow only where it is needed, i.e. HDDs, GPU, CPU, PSU), plus it gives me the chance to move the fan further inside the case to make it quieter while still drawing air over the HDDs.

I think you might be right about the elastic, Mike, it would be much simpler just to rest it on some foam, especially as I don't have a lot of clearance for a suspension system anyway. The only thing is I want to make sure it doesn't move around, so I still need some way of holding it in place.

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 12:19 am

pangit wrote:I think you might be right about the elastic, Mike, it would be much simpler just to rest it on some foam, especially as I don't have a lot of clearance for a suspension system anyway. The only thing is I want to make sure it doesn't move around, so I still need some way of holding it in place.

The 2-drive suspension assembly shown in my original suspension article in the Storage section of the main site is still in use in my main system as are the 2 Barracuda IV 40G drives in them. I removed the screws that held the assembly to the floor of the case many months ago for easier access & never bothered to put the screws back. Even with all the changes & bumps & knocks I put that system through, there has been no mishap so far. If you don't move the PC around a lot, the drives are not going to move either.

PhilgB · Post by **PhilgB** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 3:46 am

I currently have my drive on foam with side sinks at the bottom of my case. After not having it suspended, I was left with extra elastic string. Using the holes that were already at the bottom of my case (previous hd silencing attempt) I strapped down the hd on the foam. Even with very little tension, with the case at a 90deg angle, the drive and foam does not move

FLD · Post by **FLD** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 5:51 am

Hi! Good to see your still on the experiment side Pangit!
The setup should definitely work.
- Re. fan position: yes, it does work (I have a similar set up, with a ghetto fan mount alsmot in the same place as you. The good thing is that this 80mm fan is also cooling my Geforce4! (I have posted this already in the Geforce 4 or Fan positioning trend).
- Re. using the "2-HDD duct", I am sure this would work, but wonder if you would not need to put the 2 HDD "face to face", so that the hotter side of both drives are facing the inside of the duct, getting the maximum airflow.
Not sure this makes sense for all drives, but I noticed that my IBM Desktar is cleraly hotter on the non-covered side than on the covered one.
- Re. gap sealing: I would not focus on this too much, as it might a/ transmit vibrations between fan/drive/drive case, and b/ increase airflow noise (not sure though).

So, have a try, and send us pics!

jerryk · Post by **jerryk** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 8:34 am

MikeC wrote:I think it matters not whether the airflows only across one side of the drive; cooling is still effected & it will affect the internal temp regardless. .

I am not sure I completely agree with that. If you look at a hard drive there are a lot of components on the board. When the drive fails it is likely to be because you toasted one of these components. So having the components in a cooling airstream is a good thing.

jerry

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 12:00 am

So if I can only cool one side of each hard drive using this system, which should it be? I could flip one upside down as you suggest, FLD, so that the exposed circuit board on both drives is in the airflow, but isn't the top side always going to be hotter due to heat rising? I could try some experimenting in different orientations to see which is most efficient. I have a temperature gun which will be useful for this

FLD · Post by **FLD** » Thu Oct 02, 2003 12:16 am

Re. heat rising, it's actually hot air which rises, while heat radiates in an omnidirectional way. Since the HDD drive is pretty packed inside, there is almost no air inside to convey heat bottom up. So my guess is that the hotter face will always be the one which produces the more heat (in my case the exposed board side), no matter it is up or down.

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 12:45 am

Well I did it. I had some spare time over Christmas and a new Dremel

so I thought I'd give it a go. Full story plus photos can be seen:

HERE

Also details on how I passively cooled my Radeon 9000 Pro AIW and some other minor mods.

Let me know what you think! Good, bad, indifferent or whatever. I'm pretty pleased with the result - less noise and cooler hard drives.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 7:05 am

pangit wrote:Well I did it. I had some spare time over Christmas and a new Dremel so I thought I'd give it a go.

Let me know what you think! Good, bad, indifferent or whatever. I'm pretty pleased with the result - less noise and cooler hard drives.

Looks good to me! How can you beat less noise and cooler drives?

FLD · Post by **FLD** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 8:36 am

Hi guys! Happy new year! Well done Pangit! ... you really had a LOT of time to do all this, plus the time and pain to document it in your revamped site (nice as well)!
Pretty neat mod, my favourite being the twisted fan blowing toward the passive GPU heatsink.
Yes, next big test could be to remove this fan. But while I am rather confident HDD temp would not change much (because of overall case negative pressure) I would be more concerned about GPU pure passive cooling... Unless you craft some kind of ducting between HDD duct and GPU, just to make sure the airflow reachs the heatsink.
Good excuse for additional fun with your brand new Dremel!

pangit · Post by **pangit** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 8:52 am

Thanks guys! Yes, I had 2 weeks off over Christmas, and not much else to do except entertain the kids! At least it kept me out of the wife's way most of the time!

Total time spent would have been around 6 hours for the HDD suspension (it all came together pretty quick once I had the design done and all the parts I needed), 2 hours for the GPU mod, and a couple more to document it all.

I have a hand held temp probe which I'll use to check the GPU temps under load with no fan, but I've tried playing games with that fan switched off and it seems OK. Of course the air flow will be better with it removed altogether.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 5:19 pm

nicely done!

My HDD suspension mounting idea

My HDD suspension mounting idea

Anybody?