SPCR

I'm looking for two quite 80mm fans to cool the five hard dives in my NAS. Three drives will be in a Icydock 3-in-2 external cage (link: http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=119) with the other two drives in a regular internal bay. Both fans will run off the Icydock's 3-pin header, which can handle the .2 amps or so I expect the fans to draw (Icydock's very helpful support assured me of this).

My questions are:
How much airflow is really need over the lightly used drives of a home server?
Would high static pressure be useful in this situation? The drives, particularly in the external cage, are pretty squeezed together.

and:
Are there any particular fans recommended for this application?

herby wrote:I'm looking for two quite 80mm fans to cool the five hard dives in my NAS. Three drives will be in a Icydock 2-to-3 external cage (link: http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=119) with the other two drives in a regular internal bay. Both fans will run off the Icydock's 3-pin header, which can handle the .2 amps or so I expect the fans to draw (Icydock's very helpful support assured me of this).

My questions are:
How much airflow is really need over the lightly used drives of a home server?
Would high static pressure be useful in this situation? The drives, particularly in the external cage, are pretty squeezed together.

and:
Are there any particular fans recommended for this application?

We use Noctua 80mm fans in our 3-in-2 cages and they provide adequate airflow to keep the drives in an ideal range for most of the year - the exception being midsummer, where ambient in our rooms rises to close to 40 degrees and there's not really much to do there... Can't hear them, either, which is a big plus for us. That's for six WD20EARX drives.

In the same server we've got ten 7200RPM enterprise drives and it takes a pair of 140mm fans on either side of each HDD cage to keep them at the same temperature. Hard drive choice makes a giant difference as to how much fan oomph you need.

Jim, the Icydock has a large PBC backplane that might obstruct airflow. In your experience do you find it is better to blow into or suck air out of a cage?

Hi,

A few questions :

- Does the Icy dock regulate the fan ? Or can you use something like the Noctua LNA/LNA resistor, or a Zalman fanmate to slow down the fan ?

- Also, what drives are you using ? Are you using them right now, with or without fan ? If yes, what are their temp ?

- In what shop(s) (online shop ?) are you planning to buy your fan ? I live in Europe, so I can find easily some fans, but maybe you can't.

I think one of these may be silent enough out of the box (12V) :

BeQuiet shadow wings low speed : http://www.be-quiet.net/be-quiet.net/in ... iteLang=en
Nanoxia DX08-1200
Scythe S-flex 1000rpm
Nexus real silent

But will they perform strong enough ? As fot the Noctua NF-R8, sure it will last long, and it is nicely packed with LNA/ULNA resistor, but is is noisier than the fans above at low speed.

Lithium, thank you for your advice.

As to your questions:

Lithium466 wrote: - Does the Icy dock regulate the fan ? Or can you use something like the Noctua LNA/LNA resistor, or a Zalman fanmate to slow down the fan ?

Yes the Icydock does, but I'm not sure how. I emailed Icydock about running .2 amps off the fan header and they sent back this:

I thought the voltage would change more to adjust the speed.

Lithium466 wrote: - Also, what drives are you using ? Are you using them right now, with or without fan ? If yes, what are their temp ?

At the moment a mix of old drives in a regular 3.5" bay, cooled by a pair of old Panaflo Ls. They run fairly cool. I would like to upgrade over time to modern 5900rpm drives.

Lithium466 wrote: - In what shop(s) (online shop ?) are you planning to buy your fan ? I live in Europe, so I can find easily some fans, but maybe you can't.

Living in the states, I would likely order from http://www.svc.com or http://www.frozencpu.com/. I prefer http://www.newegg.com/ but they have a poor selection of fans.

Hi,

You may look at these fans :

http://www.svc.com/sp802512l-03.html
http://www.svc.com/nb-x1r.html
http://www.svc.com/nb-m8-s1.html
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/9615/ ... =g36c15s58
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/9616/ ... =g36c15s58

Maybe the Noctua NF-R8 could be a possible solution too, even if I don't like it very much, because of its bundled LNA/ULNA resistor, or you may try thermistor-controller fans (?) :

http://www.svc.com/fn-tx08-20.html
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/14506 ... =g36c15s58

Edit : will the fans run vertically mounted ?

Yep, both fans will be mounted vertically.

I'm leaning towards the Nexus:
http://www.svc.com/sp802512l-03.html
I think with the Icydock controlling the speed two should be pretty quiet.

Thanks for the suggestions,
Hopefully the loudest fan in my case will be the Gelid Slim Silent heatsink.

Nexus is a good choice. I'm not sure how the Icy dock will regulate the fan speed (the data given by Icy dock are ). Otherwise you can go with Noiseblocker http://www.svc.com/nb-x1r.html

herby wrote:Living in the states, I would likely order from http://www.svc.com or http://www.frozencpu.com/. I prefer http://www.newegg.com/ but they have a poor selection of fans.

Either of these should be good:

Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Case Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835608006

Nexus 800mm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... name=Nexus

Noiseblocker is a good brand.
Sycthe has a wide range of 80mm, some with very low speeds.

Noctua is sort of nice because you can use its included cables to set it to any of 3 speeds.

ces wrote: Either of these should be good:

Noctua NF-R8-1800 80mm Case Fan
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835608006

Nexus 800mm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... name=Nexus

I've noticed some people are super stanch defenders of one or the other. Some people say the Nexus is a cheap rebranded fan, others say the the Noctua is overpriced and under-powered, and both accuse the other of being noisy.

I'm going to give the Nexus a shot first. It moves a bit more air so I figure I can undervolt it if it's loud, and it would be a cheaper mistake if I'm wrong.

ces wrote: Sycthe has a wide range of 80mm, some with very low speeds.

I was looking at Sycthe too, the Gentle Typhoons are on my Christmas list for my gaming rig, and I have the habit of getting sucked into rabid brand loyalty.