I’ve collected all my gear and it’s sitting in a juicy collection of boxes in my laundry room, waiting to be assembled. In going through the layout and setup it looks like the 90 degree 4″ elbow join that I was going to use for a duct is going to be too damn big. That radiator is a big mofo. The rad + fan combo pushed the duct into the PCI slot area on the motherboard tray. Not good considering I’ll have something like 6 slots full of cards.
I did have some layout questions that I’m looking for answers on [H]ardOCP, Gideontech and The Tech Zone.
Basically, I’m looking for a quiet and well-cooled rig (aren’t we all?) and would like to reduce the number of fans spinning, which is why I’m going for a watercooled solution. Well, that plus it’s a rockin’ idea.
I’m looking at two possible setups:
Option one:
I put one 120mm fan at the bottom with the radiator, sucking air in and 2x 80mm fans at the top pulling air out.
This way there’s only three fans spinning and I get airflow through the radiator and over the hot SCSI drives.
Question: Will this be enough airflow to keep the drives cool as well as keeping the overall case temp near ambient?
Option Two:
I add a 120mm Chimney fan up top to pull all the hot air in the case up and out and reverse the flow on the 2x80mm fans so they blow directly onto the SCSI drives.
What’ll be the temp difference in the case and of the drives?