Hard disk location in Silverstone TJ-08

[shinjukumaster]

I have a TJ-08 which offers excellent cooling. I've just upgraded to a Samsung 1TB drive,
and that runs real cool too. Anyway, I noticed if I leave off the 3.5 bay cover in front of
the drive, the temps drop due to the airflow coming in (and exhausted by the rear case fan
and/or PSU fan).

I have some anti-vibration mounts I want to use (either Nexus, or Zalman heatpipe cooler)
and they're going to need modification around the 3.5 drive cage to fit. So I'm wondering
how it might be if I put the hard drive in the lower 5.25 bay, given that the airflow inside
the case is not so good up there (even though I would leave the 5.25 bay cover off and
fit a mesh).

What do you think?  3.5 bay or 5.25 bay?

[tino]

Move to other SFF section as its a M-ATX case I believe

[Intuit]

Drives in large part sink their heat off through direct metal-to-metal contact.  I've seen cheaply designed drive mounts that provide very little surface area contact for the HD.   Such cases by the time I see them are sometimes well on their way to killing a second HD.  I've also noticed many poorly (cheaply) designed "anti-vibration" mounts that basically put rubber or some other soft material up against the drive's sidewalls.  The drive with these devices has no metal-to-metal contact at all.  Today's drives do run much cooler and so metal-to-metal is not as critical for longevity as it used to be.  But if your goal is to simply have the drive run cooler, you'll want to maximize the surface area for metal-to-metal contact, in addition to mounting it lower.

In my case, drives are mounted to the bottom and another has a fan on it.  Both solutions have always worked well.
http://www.sudhian.com/index.php?/forums/viewpost/840901/

[shinjukumaster]

I've put the drive in the 5.25 bay using Nexus silent/heatsink mounts, front bay cover off (to be replaced by mesh)

Drive temp around 28C/29C, which is very similar to the 31C/32C (minus Nexus) when it was in the 3.5 bay.

If I crank up the case fans it'll run even cooler.