HDD cooler

[zidane]

i've just started building my first comp but realised that the hdd cooler that i bought is for 5.25 bay. I have already filled my 5.25 bays and want the hdd in a 3.5 bay. I wanted to know if there are any coolers that i could place in a 3.5 bay above the hdd bay to cool it. I've got thermaltake soprano case, It comes with intake fan at front and i've placed the hdd directly infront of it at the moment. Will that cool the hdd enough?

[Stuey]

An intake fan should be sufficient enough. Cooling is not mandatory, but I suppose the intake fan might lead to greater drive longevity. After everything is up and running, you can always toy around with additional cooling solutions.

[Cricket]

Unless you're using a 15,000 RPM SCSI HDD I don't think hard drive coolers make that much of a difference with 7,800 or 10,000 RPM HDDs. I've used hard drive coolers in the past and don't think they made any real difference. Currently I'm not using any hard drive coolers and I haven't had any hard drive problems in any of my computers for at least 5 years.

When I did have hard drives die prematurely I was using hard drive coolers...but those were IBM DeathStars so the coolers wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

Cricket