Installing custom hard drive bays

[tturaider99]

Hello. Looking to see if folks have had any success with making their
own custom hard drive bays. I've got an older HP Pavillion a320n that
I'm still in love with and have wanted to add some hard drive fans
to. My problem is there isn't enough space in the current
configuration that would give the fans enough clearance and allow the
air to circulate and still make the hard drives accessible. I've been
toying with the idea of creating a custom hard drive rack that will
place the hard drives in a more central location in the case, allow me
get to them for maintenance, and the IDE ribbon and power wires, while
allowing me to attach fans to each hard drive and having enough space
for air to circulate. Anyone have any experiences with something like
that? Thanks.

Ruben

 

[Grinder]

Hello. Looking to see if folks have had any success with making their
own custom hard drive bays. I've got an older HP Pavillion a320n that
I'm still in love with and have wanted to add some hard drive fans
to. My problem is there isn't enough space in the current
configuration that would give the fans enough clearance and allow the
air to circulate and still make the hard drives accessible. I've been
toying with the idea of creating a custom hard drive rack that will
place the hard drives in a more central location in the case, allow me
get to them for maintenance, and the IDE ribbon and power wires, while
allowing me to attach fans to each hard drive and having enough space
for air to circulate. Anyone have any experiences with something like
that? Thanks.

I made a rack out of two bits of galvanized steel, typically used for
heating/air conditioning ducts. One was a U-shaped affair that the
drives could be screwed into, and the other was flat with a slotted edge
that the first fit into, and was mounted to the bottom of a mini-tower
case. Each drive was matched with a hd cooler like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835888105

Ultimately, I replaced it all with a large capacity drive in a standard
bay. If I had to have a system that had a large number of physical
drives, I would probably invest in:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129025

 

[Jon Danniken]

Hello. Looking to see if folks have had any success with making their
own custom hard drive bays. I've got an older HP Pavillion a320n that
I'm still in love with and have wanted to add some hard drive fans
to. My problem is there isn't enough space in the current
configuration that would give the fans enough clearance and allow the
air to circulate and still make the hard drives accessible. I've been
toying with the idea of creating a custom hard drive rack that will
place the hard drives in a more central location in the case, allow me
get to them for maintenance, and the IDE ribbon and power wires, while
allowing me to attach fans to each hard drive and having enough space
for air to circulate. Anyone have any experiences with something like
that? Thanks.

Not exactly that, but I did mount a fan in the back of my drive rack in my
beige case. This required removing the existing rack and redrilling the
holes for the drives. They drives stick out a few inches now, but all that
does is prevent me from removing the mainboard from the top when the drives
are installed.

They certainly do stay a lot cooler, even just running the 12V fan at 7V.

Jon

 

[bikenraider99]

Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions. I think ultimately I'm
going to have to get a custom case, but for now, the ideas and
suggestions presented will work. I'm going to work on it this weekend
and see what I can come up with. If all goes well I'll post some
pics. If not, well, it's back to micro center and some case
shopping