Anyone played with DS380 fan orientation?

[tucansam]

First question: is there a fine mesh behind the hex (or round, hard to tell) holes on the left-side drive cage magnetic vent cover?  Heard the cover impedes airflow, curious how you guys have solved it.

 

Anyone play with fan orientation in the DS380? 

 

My primary server has two 5-in-3 hot swap cages with fans removed.  I have sealed every single hole in the case except for the drive cages and the fan vents in the case itself.  Five 120mm fans draw air out -- so the only place cool air enters the case is over the drives.  Temps have never been a problem and the machine is essentially silent.  Plus its actually pretty easy to clean the dust and dog hair.

 

Wondering if anyone has done the same with the DS380 -- seal it up, make the three 120mm's pull air out, should mean the only air coming into the case goes over the drives.

 

Anyone tried it?

 

I'm torn between the DS380 and the Q25B.  Essentially the same physical size, hard to beat 8 drives (plus a 2.5" cache) in the DS380, although it would mean a RAID card for my ITX MB.  The Q25B is a beauty, but if the heat issues I've read about with the DS380 can be mitigated, it will make the decision a little easier.  As much as I'd like to miniaturize my servers with 6+TB disks, they're still spendy, so a few extra drive bays can get me on for a few years until 20TB drives drive prices down for today's monsters.

[mr-hexen]

The Q25 can hold seven 3.5" drives + one 2.5" drive at the same time (two 3.5" drives and one 2.5" drive live on the tray at the bottom).

 

The DS380 also might have issues with CPU cooling systems. The builds I saw on an internet search all used aftermarket cooling solutions and they barely fit.