Best way to keep hard drives cool in a enclosure?

[Jugernot]

I have a Simpletech Duo Pro case, which houses two hard drives in a RAID 1 configuration. They sit in a vertical position side by side and the case can get quite hot. The cases only cooling builtin is a 40mm fan, that only recently noticed stopped working apparently. So, my two Hitachi 2TB drives sat in the thing is almost fried.... using their smart sensors, their reporting they hit 200C, which is unreal.....

So, I'm going to buy a replacement 40mm fan for it, which btw, is controlled via a thermistor in the case depending on heat levels, but wanted to know what else I could do to keep my drives safe in the future. I took the sides off and noticed that the case has not real air intakes on any sort, so I was thinking about just using a hole saw and puting some holes in the sides of the case. The only problem with that is the fact that it will kill the air flow dynamics in the case altogether.

Here is what the case looks like, if you notice, the side looks like they are vents... that is only for appearances, it's solid plastic under those metal grates:
http://www.simpletech.com/products/storage/duo-pro-drive

What do you guys think?

 

[jjmIII]

Try to be smart and add a few more breather holes. Get the best 40mm fan possible and let it run FULL time if possible.

Just my opinion of coarse..

 

[kalrith]

Can you somehow rig it to use an 80mm fan? That would provide a lot more airflow or be a lot quieter at the same airflow as a full-speed 40mm fan.

 

[Jugernot]

Unfortunately, only a 40mm fan will fit. Take a look at the picture below:

http://www.videomaker.com/content/images/article/13669/1.jpg

My question is if I cut out the sides of the case, will this negate whatever cooling the 40mm fan does provide because of the lack of forced air flow?

 

[Modelworks]

I have one of these drives.

The easiest way to solve this is with a drill . Use about a 1/4 inch drill bit and put holes about 1/2 inch apart down the sides so that one row is on each edge of the sides . I don't even use a fan now and it stays cool.

Simpletech chose the hitachi drives for a reason. They used the enterprise class drives that can take a lot more abuse than the normal desktop drives.
The ones simpletech uses are rated for 1.2Million hours MTBF.
http://www.hitachigst.com/ultrastar-a7k2000

 

[ChaiBabbaChai]

If you have the time, you could cut some holes in the sides with the hole saw and put some metal mesh on the inside and dress the edge. Or add 4 more little holes to mount exhaust fans, then flip the 40mm over and make it an intake. Orrrr make the two side fans (on each HDD) intakes and the leave the 40mm as exhaust for some positive pressure.

It doesn't sound like there's any "air flow dynamics" as it is stock.

For mine, I bought an enclosure that looks like a Mac Pro tower. The WD Black would get above 40C so I just slid the side off and lay it over one of the 230mm fans on top of my case, like this: it stays at about 33C this way.

it's supposed to work like this: