Plexi Glass Cooling Case Help

[Robbiem]

OK so heres the deal, I had a few extra (3) SATA HDDs laying around (100 GB)(120 GB)(200 GB)(Maxtor)(Maxtor)(Western Digital) SO, since I work at Best Buy I always swing by the HDD aisle to look at the enclosures, and periodically we get these in Thermaltake BLAC X SATA HDD Dock, well with my discount i got it for 27 dollars out the door. so i bring it home, and it works WONDERULLY hotswapping enabled <-- awesome feature --> well anyway, i use the 200 GB for Time Machine, and the 120 for back ups of downloads, and important files, (just as a spare, aside from time machine) and the 100 GB isnt in use yet. Well after leaving it on all day long for other program installation and time machine, i noticed that the top of the drive is rather toasty (well TBH it burnt my fingers, well not really, it was just RLY hot) anyways, the bottom (being enclosed in a thermal take product) stayed Rather cool. so i was thinking about building some sort of plexi glass, cooling house.

 

some ideas i had:

Plexi glass box, with fans and vents.

plexi glass box, with fans and vents, and water cooler.

 

im not sure how the water cooling would work exacty being as how i have never done it before, i dont know if the initial hardware has to be directly mounted to the drive, or if it can be on some arm in the box and placed up against the drive, with the same effect?

 

well those are my ideas, if i was good in PS id elaborate in a drawing but im not.. so if you guys would like to disccus this with me (i very much would like too, also i think this would be one interesting topic) or if you would like to suggest alternate ideas, feel free.

 

 

thank you all

 

-Robbie

 

(ps: here are pictures )

 

Edit: pics suck because they were taken from my Crappy Treo 700w (if anyone knows how to hack the iphone stuff onto my phone, ID LOVE TO KNOW)

[Robbiem]

no one wants to contribute to my ideas?

 

-Robbie

[sinnsyk]

i think water cooling is way of the top, but some fans can do magic.. perhaps it's cool to have 1 ventilator mounted on a platform next to it, blowing some fresh air to the hard drive. No case or whatsoever, just a fan that chills the HDD. You want to keep your hot-swap function without opening cases etc, right?

[Robbiem]

i think water cooling is way of the top, but some fans can do magic.. perhaps it's cool to have 1 ventilator mounted on a platform next to it, blowing some fresh air to the hard drive. No case or whatsoever, just a fan that chills the HDD. You want to keep your hot-swap function without opening cases etc, right?

 

yes i suppose, but also an idea i had was maybe, a complete box, with grometed ports on the back for the cables, and have it water cooled inside, but have a lid on top that i can open up and swap drives when i need too.. ??

[Tried]

water cooled? that a bit too much man... i would just put a fan next to it and turn it on, or get one of those usb powered ones and turn it on when your hd is running

 

Tried

[ero]

its not an unreasonable idea, I would imagine a plexiglass box that covers the whole enclosure (kinda like a display case; with appropriate slots cut for wires) and 2 very low noise fans on either side of the HD (not front and back, that would stop airflow too much), one for intake, one for exhaust (you might be able to get away with one intake, but i fear you would end up with dead air on the bottom)

 

to be honest though it seems like more money and trouble than its worth. Consider this: the average internal harddrive will run at an average temp of ~35 degrees Celcius. that is 95 Fahrenheit. This temp is easily hot enough to feel very hot, as you described in your OP, especially if you touched a metal part of your HD. Also, the botton of the HD i would guess is cool not due to being in a thermaltake product, but because there are connectors there, but the real moving parts and stuff that gets hot i believe are closer to the middle/top of the harddrive

[Robbiem]

its not an unreasonable idea, I would imagine a plexiglass box that covers the whole enclosure (kinda like a display case; with appropriate slots cut for wires) and 2 very low noise fans on either side of the HD (not front and back, that would stop airflow too much), one for intake, one for exhaust (you might be able to get away with one intake, but i fear you would end up with dead air on the bottom)

 

to be honest though it seems like more money and trouble than its worth. Consider this: the average internal harddrive will run at an average temp of ~35 degrees Celcius. that is 95 Fahrenheit. This temp is easily hot enough to feel very hot, as you described in your OP, especially if you touched a metal part of your HD. Also, the botton of the HD i would guess is cool not due to being in a thermaltake product, but because there are connectors there, but the real moving parts and stuff that gets hot i believe are closer to the middle/top of the harddrive

 

that is a very good post, it makes ALOT of sense actually. my main reasoning behind this whole post is that, the drive sits on my desk, and for a better part of the day, the sun shines right on it, now OBV. there are WAY cheaper ways to cool the drive rather than build a box and either air or water cool it. ie: close my curtains, move the drive behind my desk wall. so many Free things, but i thought itd be a cool little project to do, although some of the WC systems are like 120$+ so i think for now, il just move it, also that you said its probably running at normal temps.

 

 

-Robbie

 

ps. we can keep this thread open or ideas sake. if anyone has any ideas, that they would want to share or w.e.. also (probably a dumb question but) say i were to build a box, and put the water cooling stuff in it, (i think on WC CPUs and HDDs, the WC components have to be mounted on the device itself???) could i mount the WC components OBV in the box, and would the WC system make the whole inside of the box cool? or how exactly does it work?