Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

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NeilBlanchard
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by NeilBlanchard » Tue Jul 28, 2015 4:15 am

I think the "balance" of this case is a bit odd, as well. The one type of system that would use the depth of the case is one with multiple very long video cards.

QUIET!
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by QUIET! » Tue Jul 28, 2015 2:07 pm

JJ wrote:Are we not cooling hard drives any longer?
In this age of very very fast solid state drives, there is no reason to use high RPM hot running hard drives in a "silent" PC.

WD Reds run cool enough that unless they are burried, they are fine.

JJ
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by JJ » Tue Jul 28, 2015 2:16 pm

QUIET! wrote:
JJ wrote:Are we not cooling hard drives any longer?
In this age of very very fast solid state drives, there is no reason to use high RPM hot running hard drives in a "silent" PC.

WD Reds run cool enough that unless they are burried, they are fine.
Define "buried". Drives mounted in that position within this case would have little, if any, airflow over them.

yakuman
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by yakuman » Tue Jul 28, 2015 2:40 pm

QUIET! wrote:
JJ wrote:Are we not cooling hard drives any longer?
In this age of very very fast solid state drives, there is no reason to use high RPM hot running hard drives in a "silent" PC.

WD Reds run cool enough that unless they are burried, they are fine.
What about this study that show SSD failures due to high temps? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/22 ... te_trough/

QUIET!
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by QUIET! » Tue Jul 28, 2015 3:18 pm

Hot running SSDs should be a thing of the past also.

I buy Samsung because they perform well and run cool.

Any way, I think common sense dictates that any "silent" computer should not be packed like a high density rack mount server. If you can do that, it's not hard to generate enough air flow to keep a nice SSD or low speed HDD happy because they don't need much.

I didn't look at the case in the article, maybe it buries its HDD. I was just commenting on the fact that hard drive cooling is something that usually isn't an issue if you go with a modern low RPM, low power drive.

It's not like the days when it was a good idea to buy HDD coolers with fans and heatsinks to go with your expensive, fast and noisy 7,200 rpm drive that didn't quite max out Ultra ATA100.

Manabu
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by Manabu » Tue Jul 28, 2015 5:52 pm

QUIET! wrote:I didn't look at the case in the article, maybe it buries its HDD.
I think you should have looked at the HD and SSD positioning on the case before jumping in defending it...

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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by QUIET! » Tue Jul 28, 2015 7:27 pm

Manabu wrote:
QUIET! wrote:I didn't look at the case in the article, maybe it buries its HDD.
I think you should have looked at the HD and SSD positioning on the case before jumping in defending it...
Who is defending? I haven't commented on the article or the case, I commented on a post about HDD cooling which I quoted.

Quinnbeast
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by Quinnbeast » Wed Jul 29, 2015 6:02 am

QUIET! wrote:I commented on a post about HDD cooling which I quoted.
Erm, except that it was actually a post questioning whether the Define S hard drive mounts could have been located in a better position (i.e. offering moderate - rather than zero - airflow). I totally understand (and largely agree with) your point about modern HDDs, but the post was critiquing specific details of the case, not HDD choice. Anyways, back to the topic I go!

Personally, I still make use of the R4s dual 5.25 bay at the top, one for an optical drive, and one for a suspended / soft-mounted 3.5 HDD. I've dropped the HDD bays entirely, but I'm also in the position of thinking that the standard ATX layout starts to look like a slightly outdated choice if the end user has zero need for any of the traditional front drive mounts. Seems like an awful lot of empty space unless you have other needs for it. Beer cooler perhaps?

edit - I like the idea of the of the 3.5" drive mounts in principal; you could put together a very clean build... buuuuut, it's been a very long time since I've bolted a conventional HDD directly to a case. I'd imagine that they would remain unused in a silent build for many people.

QUIET!
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by QUIET! » Wed Jul 29, 2015 1:13 pm

Having just read the review paying particular attention to the HDD mounting, I see that it is slightly burried but it would work better if it was mounted in the middle slot and the top and bottom trays removed so that convection could flow a little air from bottom to top through the slots in the motherboard tray.

With a low RPM drive, that would probably be fine.

Olaf van der Spek
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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by Olaf van der Spek » Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:33 pm

How many ports do you need?
Cases come with 2 or 4 ports on the front already.

edirolx

Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by edirolx » Mon Nov 30, 2015 11:40 am

Has anyone tested this case with additional 140mm case fans since the case supports 8 or 9 different fan configs. In the R5 review, using 2x140mm fans at the front seemed to improve performance without any hit on the noise. Would having 3x at the front yield even better results?

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Re: Fractal Design Define S Tower Case

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Nov 30, 2015 2:04 pm

It would depend on the other components in the case. If you have a hefty gfx card it will swamp out all other sounds while engaged. So, adding another case fan might get lost in the background noise. Perhaps another fan would allow you to tune for lower temps at similar noise level or similar temps at lower noise level or somewhere in-between. However, now that you have 3 fans in, you might need to increase the rear fan rpm to get a benefit (increased airflow through the case).

At idle, or in a PC without a significant noise source like the gfx card, you'll be raising the base noise level a tiny bit. Might or might not be perceived depending on your room's noise floor.

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