Rotated HDD Bays

[moody89]

I've been having a look at several cases to use for a build for a friend and I've seen several cases that have the HDD bays rotated 90 degrees so they are facing side on. Obviously this looks much neater in terms of cable management etc. but surely having the solid length of the bay facing this way would impede air flow from intake fans mounted at the front-bottom of the case. Its usually the case that cable management and greater airflow go hand in hand but maybe not in this scenario.

Has anyone had any experience using this design of case? Does it affect air flow and temps enough to make it a negative instead of a positive? I would have thought that this would more or less nullify any front mounted intake fans but maybe I'm wrong...Cheers for any feedback!

 

[ulysses35]

ANY obstruction to the front fans will disrupt airflow - some of the larger cases the problem isnt so bad. The Antex 1200 for example has 3 x 120mm fans each infront of a HDD bay, now buy using each bay with only one drive the disruption isnt as bad as three drives in one HDD cage.