9x40mm > 1x120mm?

[Talik]

I am using 3 40mm fans per 5.25" drive bay to cool my hard drives. So, I've seen a lot of people who use use 1 120mm fan to take up 3 bays. Anyone know which of these two options are gonng spit out more air?

<edit> This is what I'm currently using: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?DEPA=&submit=Go&description=GALAXY+Disk+Cooler </edit>

[Monster811]

A 120mm will put out much more air, and be much cheaper. Try this:

http://www.case-mod.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=28_29&products_id=250

[Talik]

ooor.. what about 2 60mm fans taking up two slots, so space wise, 2x120mm == 6x60mm == 18x40mm

still 120mm the way to go?

120's won't be cheaper since I already have the 40mm's set up

[Monster811]

18 40mm fans will be very expensive.

in the space of a 120mm fan, you can fit 4 60mm fans, so instead of 2x 120mm = 6x 60mm, it would be 2x 120mm = 8x 60mm

4 60mm fans is better than 9 40mm fans, but a 120mm fan is still the cheapest and quietest solution.

[JSimmons]

Just the thought of 18 of those little fans spinning at top speed gives me a headache.

[TerraMex]

http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6149&pagenumber=1

See Jtroutma posts.

[Monster811]

Originally posted by JSimmons
Just the thought of 18 of those little fans spinning at top speed gives me a headache.

I have 2 antec 40mm fans cooling my router, i cant hear them unless i put my ear 3 inches away, but mabye that is becuase my comp is pretty loud. 18 of those would be pretty loud though...

[Talik]

18 40mm fans will be very expensive.
no... 18 40mm fans were very expensive.

Monster: Whoops, your right, I origionaly was thinking about 80mm's, which would take up two drive bays for each pair. but scratched that idea because 2*80 mm > 5.25". I guess I switched to 60 mm and forgot to change that.

As far as noise goes, I have 17 40 mm fans in the front of my case right now and I was very suprised at how quiet they were. My psu makes more noise then all of them combined. The 40mm's are all blowing into the case, and I have 5 80mm's on the back of my case blowing out and my case has a vaccume at the moment, so I guess the 40mm's arn't very powerfull. The filter might be slowing them down, too, as it's a pretty fine mesh.
sigh... I guess it's time to upgrade to 120mm's..

[Talik]

Yes, I saw that, Terra. I think that's what caused me to question the effectiveness of my 40mms. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking of making.. doesn't seem too difficult. Simply glue three bay covers together, maybe reinforce them, and I already have a drill bit big enough.

[Monster811]

Where do you fit all those fans? it would take 6 bay covers, do you have a cube or a huge server case?

The aluminum frame fans seem to have the best CFM to DB ratios of any fans, and they are not very expensive, if you know where to look.

[bigben2k]

Actually, a bunch of 40 mm fans would be good, where you need the air pressure, like when you're venting through a heatercore. The trick is that you have to build a shroud for each one :(

Otherwise you will get more flow out of bigger fans.

If you still want the silence, look into blowers, but they need to be fairly large to be effective.

I'll be using one with my heatercore. Car parts work best :)

[TerraMex]

Well, can you take any pictures, i'd really like to see those 17 40mm fans working there :) . It'd be one of those pictures... like this one (http://www.stud.ntnu.no/~shane/stasj/div_bilder/disksvin.jpg).

The problem with blowers is that they are (usually) very large given the size of a 120mm fan. A good papst fan moves a reasonable amout of air at 20dB or less.

[Talik]

Arrr.... sorry guys.. I can't find my little camera usb connector anywhere.. I have looked all over for it. I'll borrow a digital camera from work to take the picture, but the quality won't be very good, as it's a cheap camera we sell.

My computer is no where near as impressive as that picture, Terra. Do you know if all of those hard drives are actually in use? Or were they just thrown in to take the picture. My drives each have their own 5.25 bay so there's quite a bit of space between them and they still generate a lot of heat. I would be worried about putting that many drives that close together. And how are those all plugged in? 3 8 drive raid controllers?

As far as silence goes, I'm working on two setups, a silent one, and a noisy one.. This one, obviously, is the noisy one, so I don't really care about keeping it quiet.

[TerraMex]

No ideia, its a picture i found on another forum... but it is impressive looking.

However, after some "examination", it's about 22 hard drives (more or less), they seem IDE, so the guy has to have 11 IDE channels. Knowing that there are IDE controller cards with 4 IDE channels (Rocket has one), three cards and the standard two ide channels from the mobo should do the trick... and leave some room for more, or go with a 4 channels (RAID) mobo . At least all the cables seem connected, and that Enermax PSU (i think so) is a powerful one, enough for those disks.

Two 120mm fans + 4 (there are 2 in the back) 80mm fans do a considerable airflow through the case. I have a tower case similar to that one stored , i'm not using it because i'mbuilding a "cube case" (http://clientes.netvisao.pt/carlo001/teste1.jpg). However i can say , having used a similar fan setup , 2x120mm + 4x80mm, they move a good deal of air. It should be sufficient for those drives. Not knowing the full use of that array i cant really say more.

As far as noise goes, you can always go for a rheobus to control the fans, they're relatively cheap and easy to build, or buy.

[Talik]

Sorry that the image quality is so bad. I still can't find the usb connector for my camera, so I borrowed a child's toy from work.

[Monster811]

If you dont mind noise, put these in:

http://www.deltaww.com/products/dcfans/pdf/FFB12012038.pdf

[Arcturius]

If those fans are like the ones I've dealt with in the past for bay coolers, there's a good reason they don't make any noise :rolleyes:. Since you have that door/grate on the front of your case, you could try to squeeze in a pair of 170MM 24V fans running at 12V. My Comair Rotron Patriot tosses out lots of air, and is very quet at 12V.


But, if you want to move gobs of air and make lots of racket, all with 40mm fans, I would recommend Sunon Green Motor fans. If memory serves me correctly, they move about 16CFM each, while spinning at about 9000RPM (not bad for a 40x40x25mm fan...)

They make a PILE of racket, though; especially in large groups. The chassis I use to build mid-range 1U servers has four of them up front, and a cage full of them really howls. :)

[Talik]

If I were to put two 170mm fans in the door, would they actually work with the 40 mms to increase the airflow? Or would the 40mm's just end up holding back the 170mm's?

[TerraMex]

The second one.

The two 170mm fans (alone, no 40mm fans) , 24 v at 12v, would give a massive amout of air compared with those 40mm fans, and be extremely quiet. I've had a chance to use a 120mm 24v Papst at 12v, and its as quiet as it can get.