Hi all, my first post (and third try..). I'm planning to build my custom plexi-alu case and, in search for silence, i ordered a zalman cnps6500 al-cu(which i mount horizontally) ,a quiet gpu(hercules-ati-9500 with noisless fan),and a quiet psu. The main source of noise now is my old hard disk maxtor 740dx (7200rpm) with his 30-33 dB . My idea is to build an alu enclodure filled with acoustic foam. The problem is that the disk will produce a lot of heat and so i decided to place a large heatsink (wich will extrude from the enclosure) on top of the HD, hoping to mantain temp acceptable. A sensor will be included to monitor the temp. This is the rough idea: and this is the internal view: I was wandering if any of you have ever done something similar. Do you think it will work? Thanks for any comment.
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Haven't seen the pics yet, but I think I understand from your description. HDD's send their heat to the sides, where the screw holes are. This makes sense, as thats where the enclosure touches them, wicking away the heat. That is where you are going to want your enclosure touching, metal to metal. Foam on the top and bottom won't affect the heat to much.
You can get thermally conductive accoustical polyester foam, and it will actually transfer the heat outside of the enclosure, which if made with aluminum will disipate it nicely. I have seen some pre-made boxes that are supposed to quiet the drive, and do so pretty well, and still operate at tolerable temps.
Thanks a lot Mookie Thanks a lot Shadowspawn. I plan to place the enclosure on it's own (not in the drive bay) so the space wouldn't be a problem. Actually i was thinking to put foam on all sides and the HS on the top of the disk because i thought the heat to be dissipated mainly by the top of the drive. I'v seen some of them but they seems to operate with 5400rpm disks.
Why not just chop the sides off your enclosure, making it flush with your HDD. That way you can still mount it in a couple of 3.5" slots and still allow the drives to be cooled by the screws. If your enclosure is tight fitting, this shouldn't increase your sound levels much.
Hmm trouble is mate HDD's emit their heat from the sides not the top... msot of it anyhow... if you wanna heatsink it the best place would be on the sides
the screws don't disipate much heat... They aren't even very thermally conductive. The bottom of the hard drive(save the circuit board) is usually cast aluminum or magnesium to disipate the heat created by the motor. Sinking the cast bottom is your best bet for ridding the heat.
Actually, there are some good products out there that already do this, but they are not cheap: http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/smartdriveenclosure2002.html?id=JHKq8n8z I am also in the process of doing just this thing, but it will not be as pretty. I watercool, so heat is not really the issue, but the noise still is. I was going to make a plexi cage and line it with akasa pax mate. I can mount the drives in there and keep them silent..... Sorry, no schmatics to show at the moment. CF
I visited the SmartDrive page and that would be a nice solution but you're right Crunchy, it's not cheap at all. Ok i've decided to monitor sides,top and bottom separately to guess the best sinking position.
If I had a better memory I could give you more details, but there is a silent HDD enclosure product out there (that has been reviewed) that is similar to what you have proposed (minus the protruding heatsink). Aluminum chasis with sound deadening foam, but the foam they used also conducted heat quite well and the temps in the enclosure were a degree or two cooler than without. This, on top of the reduction in noise was quite contrary to what was predicted would be the case.
from what I've heard before (and on these forums I do believe..) is that there are acoustic foams that conduct heat better than air. Not sure if it's easy to get hold of tho, try searching the forums.
I've checked temps: TOP:44 c SIDES:43.3c BOTTOM:42c So it seems that the drive dissipate much heat on top and sides. Maybe i will put three HS, one on top and two little on sides. Hope it will work.
