OK, so i have my new HP N40L server, and very good it is as well. Loaded it with 4 * 2TB disks to add data and all going well. I put in an additional quick swap HDD drive bab into the optical drive slot, did the mod for the port and now in the process of preclearing what will be my parity disc so almost there. Now to the questions:

 

The drive in the quick swap drive bay is getting a lot hotter than the disks in the lower area of the server. There is a fan / HDD light cable in the quick change drive bay - is there a connection on the motherboard for this or does someone know where and how this could be connected so that the fan in this bay works to help with the cooling?

 

when i have done the pre-clearing of the parity disk is it worth swapping around all the disks so that the parity disk is in slot 1 and then rebooting and setting intial config before adding and starting parity or does it not matter to UnRaid or for the server in terms of performance etc which disk is which and where they are located

 

Many thanks :-)

 

OK, need to clarify the fan topic - the drive bay does not have a fan, the connection is for the HDD activity light > so now the question is is there somewhere on the N40L motherboard for this or not, if not no problem, its just a light.

 

As the bay does not have a fan and the drive in there is getting hot are there suggestions of how, where etc to add a fan. Do i just get a good quality 40*40 fan, lay it at the back of the drive bay and connect it to 12V (and where do i get that 12V from?)

 

 

i replaced the original fan with another one a bit stronger and removed the bezel in front of the optical slot -> enough cooling for 6 drive NL

Which fan did you replace it with? did it make much difference and was it a pretty easy job.

 

I have the front bezel removed as i put in a quick change trayless caddy. Wondering if its just a warm running drive (will know when i move drives around as some people have suggested parity should be in slot 1 and it will be the one working the most so dont want it to be the hottest.

 

My idea was to add in a small fan to move some air under the drive but dont know where to get power from or if someone has already resolved this ......

i can check next week when i replace all hdd in it for the exact model

I ordered a second server and would like to replace the fans on both - did you make a note of the model and part number you used? did you have any problem with modifying the cable at all due to HP using a none standard pin layout for the MB connector on this server?

Take a look in the hard drive cooling section on Newegg. There are lots of options for cooling hard drives in 5.25" bays.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=577&name=Hard-Drive-Cooling