Need HDD cooling suggestions!


Skrumpy

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So I got my build up and running in a Fractal Design Define R4 case, but when I go to do parity or other write/read intensive activities my HDD temps get up to nearly 50 degrees before I get worried and shut it down. I know the drives themselves are rated higher than 50, but I am looking for some sort of cooling solution as I don't want to see them go over 40. Just idle they are at 35/37/38/35/27 degrees and that is on a cool day. Anyone have any suggestions for how I can drop those temps?

 

Currently I have the 2 fans in the front of the case (bringing air in directly over the hdds) and the one rear fan. The case is pretty clean inside with cable management and modular PSU. There is a CPU cooler as well. I was thinking of separating the drives out a bit (every other bay) but that would only be a temporary solution as I get more drives. Anyone have a good suggestion? Is there some accessory I could get that would have a couple of fans attached to the drive bays to pull more air over the HDDs?

 

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

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So I got my build up and running in a Fractal Design Define R4 case, but when I go to do parity or other write/read intensive activities my HDD temps get up to nearly 50 degrees before I get worried and shut it down. I know the drives themselves are rated higher than 50, but I am looking for some sort of cooling solution as I don't want to see them go over 40. Just idle they are at 35/37/38/35/27 degrees and that is on a cool day. Anyone have any suggestions for how I can drop those temps?

 

Currently I have the 2 fans in the front of the case (bringing air in directly over the hdds) and the one rear fan. The case is pretty clean inside with cable management and modular PSU. There is a CPU cooler as well. I was thinking of separating the drives out a bit (every other bay) but that would only be a temporary solution as I get more drives. Anyone have a good suggestion? Is there some accessory I could get that would have a couple of fans attached to the drive bays to pull more air over the HDDs?

 

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

Don't have any great suggestions with that case. I use the Supermicro CSE-M35T-1B which includes a powerful fan that pulls air over the drive and keeps temps cool. But each one of these requires 3 5.25" external drive slots, and your case only has 2. I could see some sort of dremel job to install fans on sides of the case in a push pull configuration that would help. But overall I'd say this is not a great case for unRAID.

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Di you block the side port? Or install any exhaust fan in the opening.  Just leaving that hole open will allow air that should be coming in the front of the case to actually come in through that hole and not really help in keeping anything cool!  ---At least in a server.  (Remember that rear fan has a maximum CFM and you want to use that CFM to move air across the things you want to keep cool.)

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So I got my build up and running in a Fractal Design Define R4 case, but when I go to do parity or other write/read intensive activities my HDD temps get up to nearly 50 degrees before I get worried and shut it down. I know the drives themselves are rated higher than 50, but I am looking for some sort of cooling solution as I don't want to see them go over 40. Just idle they are at 35/37/38/35/27 degrees and that is on a cool day. Anyone have any suggestions for how I can drop those temps?

 

Currently I have the 2 fans in the front of the case (bringing air in directly over the hdds) and the one rear fan. The case is pretty clean inside with cable management and modular PSU. There is a CPU cooler as well. I was thinking of separating the drives out a bit (every other bay) but that would only be a temporary solution as I get more drives. Anyone have a good suggestion? Is there some accessory I could get that would have a couple of fans attached to the drive bays to pull more air over the HDDs?

 

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

I have the same case as yours, and have (had?) the same issues. Well, maybe not as bad. My temps went into the 40's, but that was too hight for me.

 

My solution is really simple, and part of the reason I selected this case. There are plenty of fan openings built in. In my situation, I noticed the upper drives were much hotter than the lower drives. So, I installed a single 140mm fan (blowing out) in the opening near the front. This addition helps move enough air out of the top.

 

In your situation, I would install 2 x 140mm fans in the top. You need to move more air than I do.

 

As a temporary fix, you can open the front door of the case to allow a freer flow of air till you get your fans installed.

 

This worked (works?) for me.

 

Let us know if this works for you

 

bkasten

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The R4 only comes with one of these fans http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835352007 install a second one.  If not enough still then install a top fan blowing out.

 

Yea that was one of the first things I did =/. I'll get a top fan and a side fan (though will that really add THAT much more cooling?).. still crazy that they get that hot. I was hoping for something that I could just attach to the side/front of the drive bays to just pull more air over them. Back when I was setting the case up I had a large industrial fan blowing on them directly and they never got hotter than 35, even under full load. The 3 hottest are HGST 4tb NAS drives, maybe they just generate that much heat..

 

Also how viable is it to tape up any air "holes" in the case? I've heard that suggested elsewhere but I don't see how that could help much if at all.

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The R4 only comes with one of these fans http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835352007 install a second one.  If not enough still then install a top fan blowing out.

 

Yea that was one of the first things I did =/. I'll get a top fan and a side fan (though will that really add THAT much more cooling?).. still crazy that they get that hot. I was hoping for something that I could just attach to the side/front of the drive bays to just pull more air over them. Back when I was setting the case up I had a large industrial fan blowing on them directly and they never got hotter than 35, even under full load. The 3 hottest are HGST 4tb NAS drives, maybe they just generate that much heat..

 

Also how viable is it to tape up any air "holes" in the case? I've heard that suggested elsewhere but I don't see how that could help much if at all.

Are you sure you have both the original and the new added fan to the front facing the same way as in blowing IN?  I put mine in the wrong way and had to open it up and flip the fan around.  Also do you have the switch on the front top right(?) corner on the face turned to HIGH?
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I've not had any issues with the R4 cases ... although I did add a top fan to all of the systems I've used that case for.

 

There are two things you can do that should help your temps:

 

(1)  Add a top fan to provide more airflow

 

and/or

 

(2)  Replace the Fractal fans with these excellent Noctua units -- they're excellent fans that provide about 1/3rd more airflow than the Fractal units:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608044

 

Also, as Bob noted above, be sure you've got both of your fans blowing air IN over the drives.

 

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I've not had any issues with the R4 cases ... although I did add a top fan to all of the systems I've used that case for.

 

There are two things you can do that should help your temps:

 

(1)  Add a top fan to provide more airflow

 

and/or

 

(2)  Replace the Fractal fans with these excellent Noctua units -- they're excellent fans that provide about 1/3rd more airflow than the Fractal units:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608044

 

Also, as Bob noted above, be sure you've got both of your fans blowing air IN over the drives.

 

Yea I love the case in general.. so much that I bought 2 (one for my main PC). I checked the front fans and they are definitely blowing air in. I bought 3 of the Noctua fans, 2 to replace the front fans and 1 for the top. Anything else I should do? I still don't think that is going to be enough to drop it 6 degrees but I guess we'll wait and see.

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I would certainly defer to users that have this case concerning good cooling.

 

From my research on cooling, it is more important to have more air leaving the case than air entering the case. You want there to be a vacuum of sorts inside the case encouraging air to be pulled from outside.

 

The air coming in you want to go past your drives.

 

I risk getting beat up on a thread of users that like this case, but I have to say it. Apologies in advance.

 

This case does not have removable cages for drives. If you have a drive fail, and have to open up the server to swap it out, and you risk knocking a cable on one of the surrounding disks loose, or rerouting a wire in a way that causes a problem, or generally f*ck something up inside there. Then, when you try to rebuild the drive, it will fail. Now you are in a bit of a mess, trying to figure out what went wrong while knowing that unless you get everything working you will have lost a drive's worth of data. This is one of the most common scenarios I see in the support forum.

 

I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to be able to remove a disk from a removable drive cage and pop in a new one and know that you didn't touch a thing inside the case that can cause a rebuild to fail.

 

Keep it in mind when you consider upgrading.

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Hot-swap drive cages are indeed nice --HOWEVER, they add another failure point ... the additional connector for the drives.  Every connection causes some signal degradation (very minor, of course, but not zero);  and is one more potential failure point.

 

I have 3 UnRAID servers -- 2 with hot-swap cages, and one without.  There's very little difference in the effort to swap a drive as long as the system has easily accessible drive trays.

 

The Fractal case support this very nicely -- a failed drive be be replaced in 2-3 minutes with no problem.

 

And I've yet to see a hot-swap cage that can keep drives as cool as a setup with a large front-mounted fan blowing directly over the drives.

 

I DO like the convenience of hot-swap cages;  but I no longer use them, as I've found I can keep my drives 3-5 degrees C cooler without them.

 

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Yea based on your advice I bjp999 I did research hot swappable bays, but didn't really find any of the quality I wanted and it would have increased the price beyond what I felt was of value.

 

Update: I installed 3 of the Noctua fans (2 in the front blowing in, and 1 at the top blowing out with my same rear fan also blowing out) and temps are at 40-42 while building parity. Definitely down from the 50+ degrees they were at prior and I feel safer now. I'd love to see that go down even more, do you guys think it would be beneficial to put another fan on top (there is a spot for another one) and one in the side also blowing out and replace the stock exhaust fan in the back? Or do you think that is excessive considering parity is probably worst case scenario for temps?

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Yea based on your advice I bjp999 I did research hot swappable bays, but didn't really find any of the quality I wanted and it would have increased the price beyond what I felt was of value.

 

Update: I installed 3 of the Noctua fans (2 in the front blowing in, and 1 at the top blowing out with my same rear fan also blowing out) and temps are at 40-42 while building parity. Definitely down from the 50+ degrees they were at prior and I feel safer now. I'd love to see that go down even more, do you guys think it would be beneficial to put another fan on top (there is a spot for another one) and one in the side also blowing out and replace the stock exhaust fan in the back? Or do you think that is excessive considering parity is probably worst case scenario for temps?

 

It's all a matter of what you are comfortable with.

 

I always try and keep my disks in the 30 degree range. 40 Degrees during parity is not too bad.

 

If it were me, and I wanted a bit more, I would add a second top fan first, and see the result. It seems to me, that case is a little warmer at the top. If I were still not satisfied, then I would go for the side fan.

 

bkasten

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Clearly the increased airflow has helped a good bit.  See what the "normal" temps look like (i.e. not during a parity sync or check) ... and if they're still over 40 I'd add another top fan.  But I suspect they'll be in the mid-30's ... which is fine, so you don't need more airflow.

 

But if you do decide you want better cooling, I'd add another Noctua as a 2nd top fan.  That will double the top exhaust airflow, which should drop another few degrees from your drive temps.

 

The R4 is a REALLY nice case, but that excellent sound insulation also tends to hold in heat; so you need to be sure you have enough airflow to exhaust it all  :)

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