I need to cool my hard drives (at the very least), but know next to nothing about cooling. If I could get a general overview, so I don't get ripped off in the store, that would be great. Some questions: Do all hard drive cooling devices require a 5.25" drive bay? What brands should I be looking out for? (Several to choose from would be nice, as we can't get everything here). How much should I be looking to pay? While I'm at it, should I just go the whole hog and upgrade from the stock fans on my CPU, Northbridge, and GPU? Again, what brands and prices? Or should I really go for it, and go for watercooling? Is it difficult and dangerous? Especially for someone who hasn't even upgraded to air? Anything else I should know? If this is too little research done by myself, could someone at least point me to good sites for cooling, so I can look at prices?
It all depends on: how much are you willing to spend there's enough room inside your case are willing to mod and invest some of your time doing them you care or not about noise This is how I cool down my HDDs. Cheap, easy, noiseless. http://members.lycos.co.uk/herdkilling/Antec/hddheatsink.jpg
Well, I've just been down to the shop to have a look, and all they have are some unbranded fans attached to brackets to screw on. This won't help much, as I have a fan blowing over them anyway. I will spend whatever is necessary on the hard drive coolers to get the best I can. The other cooling, well... I don't know anything about the options... I would imagine there is room in my case, I don't have all that much in it. Yes I am willing to mod and invest time. Silent is nice, but not really necessary.
id say... go with air, its not worth the trouble and money to cool your hardrives (assuming thats more than 2) and all your components with water. as for your questions, no not all HDD coolers require a 5.25" bay but the nicer ones tend to take up the 5.25" bay, as for brands, i would highly recomend zalman they have pretty nice and quiet cooling solutions for almost anything in your case, cooler master also has some nice Hard drive coolers (cooldrive series), i dont know about computer retail stores near you, but the ones near where i live are really shite and expensive id say you shop online, you would probably get better prices online. also, f you havnt used aircooling yet its gonna be loud ><
Then I would use the heatsink method. If you take your case from one place to the other, just use some screws or something to secure it.
Ordering online is no good. The companies that even ship here charge so much on shipping, its ludicrous. But at the same time, I haven't been able to find anything but those fans here. When I was in the capital though, I think I saw a Coolermaster hard drive cooler. I was a bit confused as to how it worked. Looked like it simply enclosed the hard drive.
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I've got 10 HDDs in my rig and they run hot and to cool them down I use those 'fans on brackets' and they do work! I have a 120mm cooling the front 5 drives (side on) and then 2 of those fan things under 2 of the other 5 and they all run about the 35C Regards GiGo
