Intake fans - on the front or the side?

[JesseKnows]

My server has 8 hard drives. My current Chieftech has the fans on the front, between the drives and the case's front. One of the problems I have is that there is no such fan for the 5.25" drives, only for the 3.5" on the center and bottom. I added a "hard drive fan" but it is only enough for the the drive just behind it. My monitoring software shows that some drives are around 34 degrees C and some reach 45, and they are the same model and so unlikely that the reason is inherent heat but rather it is airflow.

I am modding a simple tower case, hoping to do better. The front isn't really suitable for fans, it has various hardware and plastic, and removing them would weaken the case.

I am considering putting any number of 90mm fans on the side panel, so they would blow in on the drives. There are mounting slots in the drive cages which I expect would let the air through. Also, some heat would be conducted to the drive cage and dissipated from there. I will put a 120mm exhaust in the roof of the case, which should be better than the current back-mounted exhausts.

The main heat source is the drives, the CPU is a PIII/933 Coppermineand the RAM is DDR 266.

Is this reasonable? I have more time than money to put into these things.

 

[Mday]

show me a picture, i'll let you know.

but so far, i would say side.

Here's my config:

2 120mm fans as side intake (blows at the mobo).
1 80mm exhaust behind the CPU
1 80mm fan on the CPU
2 80mm exhaust in the front (yeah, using front intake as exhaust)
1 80mm exhaust on top

I have the fans on reduced voltage lines =D

Reasoning:
The side is the only unobstructed area where fresh air can reach the CPU\mobo.
If I draw air IN from the front, that means the fresh air will hit the HDDs first, thus warming the air.

 

[JesseKnows]

Thaks Mday, I will try to take pics. I'm halfway through the mod.

The problem is that I am trying to get the drives cooler, so hitting them is a good thing. What the non-mod solution failes to do is get to _all_ the drives.

Picture 7 shows the 3.5" drive cages. They have intake fans in front of them, and the drives in them are a good temp. The 5.25" drive bays do not have a fan, and it's they that get hot.