Side mounted hard drive cases?

[eddie500]

I have been seeing many cases with side mounted hard drives. Is this type of hard drive mounting superior to the normal front-back hard drive mounts?

 

[Rogue71]

makes no difference other than the side mount usually makes it easier to install/remove the drive.

 

[LAiN_OfTheWired]

WAY easier to remove the drives, and if you've got tons of cabling going on inside then you don't have to worry about unplugging anything or moving any PCIe cards out of the way to get at a drive. So superior? Yeah, I'd have to say so.

 

[E.T]

Besides that easier access compared to standard front-back mounting it's superior in space utilization efficiency by leaving more space for long cards with same external case depth.
But if not done properly it leaves more "room" for designers to trash airflow.

 

[Computer Ed]

If you are referring to what I think you are referring to, the drive is put in side to side instead of front to back, it is the DUMBEST case design feature i have seen with only a few exceptions.

In most cases the drive mounting area is positioned to sit right in front of an air intake path or even a fan. Where the front to back drive mount provides an air tunnel in effect for the intake the cross mount just blocks the basic airflow and thus restricts it from reaching it's potential.

Yes it is easier to swap out drives but the reason I buy the higher end case is usually for better cooling and this reduces the potential in all but a very few cases.

 

[Power5]

Yeah, when they mount the drives sideways, they usually put a steel sheet to hold the drives with absolutely no holes for any air to pass through. So the 120mm-200mm front fan in many cases is just cooling down a non perforated steel sheet.

I would love to see someone with one of the cases that allows the drives to be rotated to do a temp test to see how absolutely terrible this side mounting is for air flow and temps. Instead of this constant bitch fest about terrible air flow. The way I see it, long mounted HDDs have the cables usually stuffed between them, at least that is what the cables do in my 900 case. The excess is stuffed between the drives. Not talking about the excess non used cables, I mean the extra length on the OEM cable for my Corsair 620HX. I am sure that does not impede airflow at all though.

 

[E.T]

I would love to see someone with one of the cases that allows the drives to be rotated to do a temp test to see how absolutely terrible this side mounting is for air flow and temps.

You should be more worried about buzzword design cases done just for the sake of weird design and empty marketing buzzwords.
Going from the PC-B70 to the Raven, I GAINED(!!!) about 7 to 10* Celcius on my CPU temps
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034567466&postcount=1
Any design needs some thought to work:
RV02 is awesome and a great improvement over the Raven in many areas - one of which is the overall cooling... CPU temps in the RV02 are on par with the LL PC-B70, which to date has been the best air-cooling case I've used.
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034568604&postcount=9

 

[Omerta]

You should be more worried about buzzword design cases done just for the sake of weird design and empty marketing buzzwords.
Going from the PC-B70 to the Raven, I GAINED(!!!) about 7 to 10* Celcius on my CPU temps
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034567466&postcount=1
Any design needs some thought to work:
RV02 is awesome and a great improvement over the Raven in many areas - one of which is the overall cooling... CPU temps in the RV02 are on par with the LL PC-B70, which to date has been the best air-cooling case I've used.
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034568604&postcount=9

My temps in the FT02 are better than in my old PC-B70, especially GPU temps. You forget that the thing that makes the biggest difference with CPU temps is the cooler you're using for it and how well it was mounted/thermal paste application, etc.

Plus with the post you linked to, he runs his fans at low, which is very quiet. The B70 fans need to run at higher rpms + more noise to achieve similar temps.

But anyway, I hope case manufacturers keep pumping out regular tower cases with regular interiors instead of trying to innovate. That would be awesome.

 

[Computer Ed]

The way I see it, long mounted HDDs have the cables usually stuffed between them, at least that is what the cables do in my 900 case. The excess is stuffed between the drives. Not talking about the excess non used cables, I mean the extra length on the OEM cable for my Corsair 620HX. I am sure that does not impede airflow at all though.

Going ahead and roll your eyes because while you where rolling those eyes you obviously failed to actually plan your build in your Nine Hundred case. The HD bays can be lifted so that a blank can be placed in the lowest slot resulting in a nice area to be formed in the very bottom of the case with more than enough room for spare cabling. This tucks sweetly out of the way and causes no air flow restrictions.

Might want to study up your options more before make statements..

BTW below is a pic of the HD mounting bay for the Thermaltake Spedo. Two of these sit in front of the 140mm intake fan.

PLEASE do not tell me that these will not restrict air flow. BTW that bay pictured is EMPTY! When I asked Thermaltake about this for my review of the Spedo BTW, THEY admited the design was not good in this regard and comment on how they packaged an option to remove these restrictions.

Might want to see a doctor about that rolling eye problem to help you see things a little more clearly.

 

[Power5]

Obviously side ways drives can be done improperly as Tt illustrated. Look at the lian li design, they appear to be very unrestrictive. Another idea would be sideways ventilation. Put a vent on the window side and a fan on the back side of the case. Then airflow would go across the HDDs and still allow easier removal.

 

[E.T]

But anyway, I hope case manufacturers keep pumping out regular tower cases with regular interiors instead of trying to innovate. That would be awesome.

Too bad that half of the time innovations come from marketing wanting bulletpoint-engineering.
Like that HDD mounting system of PC-B70 is already halfway there: That unnecessary HDD caddy/tray only increases size of airflow obstacle compared to plain HDD with rubber grommet screws.
It's almost like rule that if something works it has to be broken so that there's possibility for new improved model.
(except in displays were they just keep crapping them further with 16:9, just had to order new laptop for replacing only three years old one because vertical resolution is being killed to extinction)


But really worst thing are those stamped often rather restrictive fan vents in lower end cases which have also further hole blocking mounting positions for 80 and 92mm fans...
Would be time to innovate those away.