PC overclockers/tinkerers...I have a question...

[htismaqe]

Last year I bought a Sabrent external HDD enclosure that includes a cooling fan. I thought it might help extend the life of the drive in the enclosure.

Today, I noticed that the fan was not spinning. After taking it apart, I noticed that the mounting bracket was poorly installed (and cheap plastic) so the fan was rubbing on the drive, stopping the fan.

Normally, a case fan of this sort (when installed in a PC or other similar device) would be mounted with the closed side (the housing with the label that doesn't spin) facing the computer case. The open (spinning) side would be facing in and normally would either have free space behind it or be covered with a screen to prevent something from interfering with the fan. Air is pulled into the open side and sent out of the case.

The problem with this thing is that there's precious little space between the open side of the fan and the HDD. On top of that, the mounting bracket actually has a built-in screen. After taking it completely apart, the fan actually fits better in the mounting bracket if I reverse it so the housing side of the fan is facing the HDD. Then the open side is protected by the built-in screen in the mounting bracket. It almost looks like that is the CORRECT orientation based on how everything fits together.

The issue is this:

With the closed side of the fan facing the HDD, I've reversed the airflow. I would now be pulling air IN to the enclosure rather than blowing it out. It does appear that the design of the enclosure would allow air pulled in to flow 2 or 3 inches and out the grill in the front of the enclosure.

So for those of you that have done a lot of work with PC cooling, should I reverse the fan?

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by Ragged Robin

It's from a demo of their new firmware, they clustered like 4x10 bay rackmounted NASs fully loaded

Crazy.

By the way, I found a router that can compete with SoC-based NAS' on I/O now.

The new Netgear R7000 can read and write USB3.0 at over 25MB/s. Small Net Builder actually hit 40MBps in a couple of tests.

Pretty impressive for a router. I'm getting one on Friday to play around with.

[htismaqe]

I feel obligated to necro this thread just in case anybody saw my comments about the Hornettek enclosure and were considering buying one.

This is the review I wrote on Amazon:

Worked great...for 32 days.
2 days after the Amazon return period expired, one of the fans stopped spinning.

I knew I was in trouble when I retrieved the enclosed materials from the box and there was NO warranty information anywhere to be found. The manual did not contain contact info or anything.

I went to the Hornettek website, which conveniently contains no link for "support" or technical help of any kind. The only option was to find their mailing address and phone number via the "contact us" section.

I called the 800 number twice. The first time it rang through to a nondescript voicemail announcement that simply said "if you would like to leave a message, please re-enter the 10-digit number of the person you would like to reach." No "thanks for calling Hornettek" or anything even resembling an actually company. The second time I called, it rang 10 times, gave me a FAX tone, and hung up.

[htismaqe]

So I ended up buying a new Rosewill enclosure, the one I posted the picture of below.

I just unboxed it and sure enough, the fan is EXACTLY backwards of the Sabrent. There's no way for the fan to rub on the drive because it's actually mounted with the spinning side behind a grill.

I guess I should have gone with the Rosewill before. Despite the overall similarities, it's the subtle changes that make one brand more dependable than another.