As I am waiting for my P182 case to be delivered I am contemplating on different hard drive and fan configurations.

So, I am actually torn between two configurations and I would be thankful for all of your opinions:

1. One hard drive in the top chamber, front fan mounted, two hard drives in the lower chamber, no fan in front of the PSU -> This configuration would allow the front 120mm fan to blow air over my passively cooled graphics card (Gigabyte 8600GT) as well as over my system drive (Western Digital Raptor 74 GB) but I am not certain if the heat generated by the hard disk would be a problem in this kind of setup (thus producing additional heat for the graphics card rather than cooling it). Also, I am somewhat worried about the front filter getting dusty quickly.

2. All the three hard drives in the lower chamber, 120mm fan installed between the drives and the PSU, no fan in the front position -> This should effectively cool the hard drives but the graphics card would be cooled only by the rear exhaust.

As for my other airflow/ventilation related hardware, I will probably close the top vent hole and use a Papst 120mm as the rear exhaust. I will be using a Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme with another Papst on it.

Thank you in advance for all your thoughts.

Ive just built up my system into a 182 - its a tight fit and i think there is less than 1mm betweet the side panel and the top of the ultra 120 extreme - but it works. In my situation the ultra 120 can only be mounted horizontally.

So for my configuration im running a 120mm at the back, one at the front and one in the psu cage, all fans are 1200rpm scythe fans so its close to dead quite anyway.

Paul