SPCR

Well, I haven't gotten my decouple bracket prototypes yet (though it might be done, I have to check). Here is my concept for heatsink brackets, which I will hope to have prototyped in a couple weeks. I have the heatsinks, just need the brackets. This is the 2 hard drive version a 4 drive version has 4 heatsinks. I would like to believe this will function passive in still air, I hope to find out soon.

How do you mount/remove the top HDD with the heatsink(s) over the mounting holes?

What's your source for this size heatsink?

Brackets are copper (or just colored for the illustration?)? Aluminum? Steel?

According to the picture, the heatsinks are notched for screws. You remove the heatsinks, then remove the screws for the HDD. The brackets are probably tapped for threads.

My gut feeling is that heatsink performance in still air would be improved if the heatsink vanes were vertical instead of horizontal. Of course, in a fan induced airstream, horizontal would be prefered. Hmm, maybe a diagonal mounting would be the best?

Question: If the HDDs are grommet mounted in the bracket, why bother with the heatsinks on the bracket? The HDD will be thermally isolated from the bracket by the grommets. Unless you plan on grommet mounting the bracket to the case. Actually, that's not a bad idea.

fmah wrote:...decouple bracket prototypes...

Mr_Smartepants wrote:Question: If the HDDs are grommet mounted in the bracket, why bother with the heatsinks on the bracket? The HDD will be thermally isolated from the bracket by the grommets. Unless you plan on grommet mounting the bracket to the case. Actually, that's not a bad idea.

I'm sure fmah will answer, but I think the idea is to have a HDD mounting bracket that you can suspend, yet with passive cooling.

Mr_Smartepants wrote:According to the picture, the heatsinks are notched for screws. You remove the heatsinks, then remove the screws for the HDD. The brackets are probably tapped for threads.

Yeah, if that is the case, it makes me wonder what type of conduction there will be between the bracket and the heatsinks. If they have to be removed to get the HDD in and out it makes putting thermal compund in there a messy job.

The bracket itself is made of aluminum, 1/8" for the prototype. The holes are countersink holes so when you use a flathead screw to attach the drives the surface will be flat. This is the only straightforward way to conduct heat to any style of heatsink. You may wish to use thermal grease in the gaps, but I don't know if that would affect performance much and it would be messy.

This is separate from the grommetted drive bracket, that is a separate thing.

The bracket can be screw mounted to the case by nuts mounted to the bottom of the brackets, but I would suggest using rubber feet or other foam/rubber between the bracket and case to isolate the bracket from direct contact with the chassis. Or you can just have it sit at the bottom on a mouse pad or foam or whatever you want.

The heatsinks are from this site, though I've seen them in other places.
http://corporate.auctionworks.com/store ... &sfid=1218

It possible to make a suspended bracket that has passive cooling, but it will take more space and cost a bit more. These are my tests to see what improvements can be made, but the one thing about this bracket is you can start covering it up with foam. The only thing you should not cover is the heatsinks.

Very nice drawing....wish I had that talent. FWIW. CompUSA sells a similar set of brackets, aluminum, in two sizes. For two or three hard drives. They have no heatsinks, but the aluminum brackets do transfer some heat.

I had two Maxtor drives in the larger size...left a space between the drives. It was sitting on a mouse pad and fairly quiet. I tried many ways to cool the setup but was never satisfied with the cooling smart temps. In order to get the temps much below 40c required extra fans. I finally gave up on the project and mounted the drives outside the case in a separate enclosure with it's own fan......

the thing I've noticed is that the hd cases are actually pretty good at dissipating heat as long as there is some minimal amount of airflow. In my case, when the drives had no active cooling and there was no front intake, they hovered around 43c. When I put them into my ghetto noise reduction box (technically still no front intake), I put a directron silencer @ 5v there to cool them. I can't imagine it's pushing much more than 4cfm, but it keeps my three drives in the low 30s.

Its alot of metal ... might give you some problems with the vibration amplification ... I once pulled a whole HD cage from an old case and decoupled it inside my present case. The HD whine was amplified more and there was relatively little thermal drop, but I didn't have massive heatsinks of it

I am not sure if this will work very well.

Your contact area is very small. And you are counting on the heat to dispensate through the sides of the harddisks.
Then the heat has to go through two barriers. First the gap between the drive and the bracket. After that from the bracket to the heatsink.

But let us know what your results are

I agree with Shuriken -- there appears to be a fair amount of potential thermal resistance. Plus, the comment by rpc180 has validity too. It IS a lot of metal, and there is no question HDD vibrations can create noise with it. If you look at existing commercial solutions for HDD cooling, you will find quite a few that have massive HS structures. The issue with most of them is noise:

1) they also use fans, sometimes tiny noisy ones, and
2) they direct-couple the HDD to the HS which gets hard-bolted to the case...

Both of which cause a fair amount of noise.

But if you just took the HS casing of a good commercial HDD cooler, I think it would probably do a better job of just cooling because there is less thermal resistance between drive & HS. Just set it down on foam on the bottom front of the case and you'd get OK cooling.

edcrane wrote:the thing I've noticed is that the hd cases are actually pretty good at dissipating heat as long as there is some minimal amount of airflow. In my case, when the drives had no active cooling and there was no front intake, they hovered around 43c. When I put them into my ghetto noise reduction box (technically still no front intake), I put a directron silencer @ 5v there to cool them. I can't imagine it's pushing much more than 4cfm, but it keeps my three drives in the low 30s.

My experience matches yours 100%. In my current box I'm using a 92mm L1A @5V to cool my Barracuda IV. w/o a fan it runs at about 42-44°C, with the fan it runs at ambient (anywhere from 30°C to 36°C) temp. So my solution is to suspend or grommet mount my drives with a little breath of air flowing across them.

ill find a piccy of my setup. its quiet good:)

www.emotiveexcellence.com/pingu/via/
dtemp saying 30c now, and its around 22/23 in here atm i think. drive is idle with pretty much no airflow. as it is in the pics basicaly

Hey! That looks like a good ole Taisol mod. The stuff you did under the 'dark ages' (before Zalman).

But how is the fan attached to the HS? .. sits there by magic? I cant see any mounting gear.

I used a spare drive cage and rested it on foam in my old system. Without a front fan dtemp ranged from 41C to 54C. With a 12v 80mm Panflo, dtemp reported about 38C(idle) to 45C(usage)


Building off the article on drive heatsink (from the main site)...

For my new system I used copper plumber's tape (a strap of metal with hole evey 1/2 inch or so) I used about 18 inches on each side. I added a grounding wire under one strap just to be sure. The spacing of the hole "fit" the fron and middle mounting holes.

I used "Safety first" table edge protection foam (for small children and sharp table edges) to decouple the drive from the removeable drive bay.
This is a dense closed cell foam.

I zip tied the drive to the bottom of drive cage then bent the copper straps into wide oval loops under the drive in the air flow of a 90mm panaflo L.

At 12v the 90mm panaflo is very noisey but the dtemp was 28C to 29C at idle 30C to 31C during defrag and program installation.

At 5v dtemp was about 1.5 C higher than when the fan was at 12 v. (However by CPU and motherboard temps rose more than 1.5C)

I am very pleased with the results. My sculpting of the straps is a bit ugly--I did it quick and dirty, but it would be easy to make cleaner.

The straps do pick up vibrations but the metal is so soft and heavy the the frequency is almost subsonic. Twanged the copper loops produces a sound the you feel more than hear. This should nt applify or sustain sounds from the drive, but may sustain low frequency vibrations from moving or bumping the computer.


I originally typed the wrong temps of my heat sinked drives. It is now fixed

1HandClapping....can you post pictures?

EDIT: Did you try your temps without the copper plumbers tape to see if the "heatsink" makes a difference?

aphonos wrote:1HandClapping....can you post pictures?

EDIT: Did you try your temps without the copper plumbers tape to see if the "heatsink" makes a difference?

I'll probably post pictures within a week or so. (I am using a very interesting aluminum case) My main emphasis is transfering my main system.

The original temps (41C -54C) are with an identical drive using a standard steel? 3.5" drive cage resting on foam. Admittedly, it is in a different case but still the dtemps on my new system are very good for any system let alone a quiet one. My system is not silent (yet ) but it is quieter than my quartz wall clock.

I do not hear any drive noise at idle and seek noise is very quiet. I could barely hear the drive during defrag.

Originally I was going to use the plumbers tape as a heat pipe to conduct heat out of a box like Leo's (PowerGyoza's) Printer's Block Linoleum but I never got around to buying it.

Leo, It should be an easy mod to add the tape and you should get a good drop in temp.

I bought solid copper plumbers tape for about $10 for 10 feet.

Originally I was going to use the plumbers tape as a heat pipe to conduct heat out of a box like Leo's (PowerGyoza's) Printer's Block Linoleum but I never got around to buying it.

Leo, It should be an easy mod to add the tape and you should get a good drop in temp.

I bought solid copper plumbers tape for about $10 for 10 feet.

1HandClapping wrote:Originally I was going to use the plumbers tape as a heat pipe to conduct heat out of a box like Leo's (PowerGyoza's) Printer's Block Linoleum but I never got around to buying it.

Leo, It should be an easy mod to add the tape and you should get a good drop in temp.

I bought solid copper plumbers tape for about $10 for 10 feet.

That tape is a good solution 1HC. Better than aluminum foil and much cheaper than panasonic heatsink film/foil!

yomat, bluetac on the hub. i actully did a temp 80mm mod for my dad, hm just realised that had far more holding it than bluetac that i use all the time. oops:)
i did a mod wid 2 60mms and ducting, was quiet effective noisy tho :\