[SOLVED] Mounting hard drive on base of 5.25" bay

[Ravz]

Hello,
I have a spare 3.5" hard drive that I am planning to mount directly to the base of the 5.25" bay and secure it using wire ties(I know there's an adapter for 3.5" to 5.35" but it takes more than 45 days to get it delivered to my place). The PCB of the drive and the screws that hold the PCB are touching the base of the bay. Is it safe to mount like that or does it harm the drive or create some kind of short in the system?

 

[Barty1884]

It's 'safe', yes. You might want to try to incorporate something to dampen sound/vibration though - HDDs will vibrate.

Where are you located? A 5.25" to 3.5" drive mount should be (fairly) readily available in most regions.

 

[Ravz]

It's 'safe', yes. You might want to try to incorporate something to dampen sound/vibration though - HDDs will vibrate.

Where are you located? A 5.25" to 3.5" drive mount should be (fairly) readily available in most regions.

Yeah I am thinking to place a strip of thick foam under the horizontal edge of the hard drive. Do you think it's a wise idea? Also does the hard drive need to be cooled from under?
Btw I reside in India and there seems to be no stock of this adapter anywhere at my place.

 

[faalin]

You can virtually mount the drives in any orientation that you want. If your 5.25 bay has holes in it, should to mount a cd/dvd drive, you can use those hole to screw the drive into the cage. you will only be able to mount 1 side but atleast it will be screwed in and not rely on foam pads and zip ties.

Here is one of my old computers, the two lower drives are Solid state drives, while the top two are Western digital blue 500GB, drilled holes and mounted to the motherboard tray.

 

[Ravz]

You can virtually mount the drives in any orientation that you want. If your 5.25 bay has holes in it, should to mount a cd/dvd drive, you can use those hole to screw the drive into the cage. you will only be able to mount 1 side but atleast it will be screwed in and not rely on foam pads and zip ties.

Here is one of my old computers, the two lower drives are Solid state drives, while the top two are Western digital blue 500GB, drilled holes and mounted to the motherboard tray.

That's some sick looking rig you had got. But does the screws actually hold up the weight of the drive when screwed on only one side of the 5.25 bay?

 

[faalin]

it actually depends more on the cage material then the screw. The screw will hold the drive its how much the cage side wall will flex as to whether the drive will sag or not.


That was one of my first water cool rigs id did, it ran 3 loops out of 1 reservoir cooling the CPU, MB, and 2 gtx 480's. During winter i was able to hit 4.9Ghz on a i7 950, and to this day im still using the rig. Its now running a i7 980x with 3 GTX 780 Ti's on air and was turned into my work computer that im now writing this reply on.

 

[Ravz]

it actually depends more on the cage material then the screw. The screw will hold the drive its how much the cage side wall will flex as to whether the drive will sag or not.


That was one of my first water cool rigs id did, it ran 3 loops out of 1 reservoir cooling the CPU, MB, and 2 gtx 480's. During winter i was able to hit 4.9Ghz on a i7 950, and to this day im still using the rig. Its now running a i7 980x with 3 GTX 780 Ti's on air and was turned into my work computer that im now writing this reply on.

Dang!!! I'm really jealous of your first rig already 🙁 and besides I'm so happy that it is still running well and you still care about it, also pamper it often.

BTW I actually mounted the hard drive to one side of the bay firmly as you had told me before. And about the space of hard drive base and PCB, I made 4 spacers(each of 6mm height) from nylon that is screwed to the 4 holes under the drive which doesn't sag, has almost zero vibration, ample air flow under the HDD and most importantly I no longer have to worry about the base of HDD touching the bay anymore.

Also a huge thank you for your response and lending some time for me to get through this, I really appreciate it.

 

[faalin]

hey no problem.

Yeah its gone through a few changes over the years. this was about 2 years ago right before the motherboard waterblock leaked and killed itself. bought another used board off ebay and got it back up and running.

at this point is was running a a xeon x5690 and 4 GTX 670 superclocked. After that i just put it in a phanteks p400 case put in a i7 980x with 3 780 Ti's and a cryorig H7 cooler, has been happy ever since.

 

[Ravz]

hey no problem.

Yeah its gone through a few changes over the years. this was about 2 years ago right before the motherboard waterblock leaked and killed itself. bought another used board off ebay and got it back up and running.

at this point is was running a a xeon x5690 and 4 GTX 670 superclocked. After that i just put it in a phanteks p400 case put in a i7 980x with 3 780 Ti's and a cryorig H7 cooler, has been happy ever since.

Damn that quad SLI, pretty simple and straight forward water loop, freaking 480 and 360 rads, 1600w PSU..... Dude it must have been pretty badass PC at the time you built this. PC p@#n confirmed at least for me <3