Hello fellow Norco 4220 fans!
After reading the specs for the 4220, my only complaint was that it had space for only a single 2.5" system drive. As you know, these are generally smaller and more expensive than their 3.5" counterparts. Ideally I wanted a decent sized system drive (was thinking of hosting a SVN server on the box, and possible some virtual machine images, etc), as well as a fairly large drive that I would use for nightly backups of only the critical files on the RAID array (photos, docs, etc).
So I ordered the case and the 2.5" drive, along with a bunch of 3.5" drives for the array. After receiving everything I found that the case now includes *2* mounts for 2.5" drives, contrary to Norco's product page. I also found that a 3.5" drive could sit on these mounts and still have clearance for the case cover to slide back on. However, the mounts and their screw positions were intended only for 2.5" drives.
So my quest began of finding a way to mount 1 or 2 3.5" drives there and ditch my smaller, more expensive 2.5" drive.
The following photos illustrate the solution I came up with. My question to you guys is: Does this seem like a bad idea? Would there be any implications to this placement,such as airflow, heat dissipation, etc? It seems like the fan plane should cool them just as it does the ones in the backplane.
As it turns out, there are two screw holes on the mounting bracket that line up with two inner holes on the drives:
This occurs only on one side of the drive, but should be enough for our purposes.
The mounting plate is just wide enough so that it rests on the screw mounts on both sides of the drive, and does not rest on the circuit board:
Of course if you're worried that it is too close, you can always throw a washer under there to space it out a bit more.
Once the drive is attached to the mounting plate, I had to find a way to mount the plate to the case! Luckily, after flipping it over I noticed that the plate extended past the drive a little bit, just enough to expose a mounting screw hole! This allows us to affix it to the top of the backplane.
Of course this is only one mounting hole exposed here, but if you tighten it and dont swing the case around too much it should be sufficient. Also, if you're able to throw this case around (full of drives or not), then you should stop building computers and enter a bodybuilding competition.
Here is the finished product of one drive mounted in this fashion:
Looks like I've run out of attachments (5 max), so I'll continue this in the next post!
After reading the specs for the 4220, my only complaint was that it had space for only a single 2.5" system drive. As you know, these are generally smaller and more expensive than their 3.5" counterparts. Ideally I wanted a decent sized system drive (was thinking of hosting a SVN server on the box, and possible some virtual machine images, etc), as well as a fairly large drive that I would use for nightly backups of only the critical files on the RAID array (photos, docs, etc).
So I ordered the case and the 2.5" drive, along with a bunch of 3.5" drives for the array. After receiving everything I found that the case now includes *2* mounts for 2.5" drives, contrary to Norco's product page. I also found that a 3.5" drive could sit on these mounts and still have clearance for the case cover to slide back on. However, the mounts and their screw positions were intended only for 2.5" drives.
So my quest began of finding a way to mount 1 or 2 3.5" drives there and ditch my smaller, more expensive 2.5" drive.
The following photos illustrate the solution I came up with. My question to you guys is: Does this seem like a bad idea? Would there be any implications to this placement,such as airflow, heat dissipation, etc? It seems like the fan plane should cool them just as it does the ones in the backplane.
As it turns out, there are two screw holes on the mounting bracket that line up with two inner holes on the drives:
This occurs only on one side of the drive, but should be enough for our purposes.
The mounting plate is just wide enough so that it rests on the screw mounts on both sides of the drive, and does not rest on the circuit board:
Of course if you're worried that it is too close, you can always throw a washer under there to space it out a bit more.
Once the drive is attached to the mounting plate, I had to find a way to mount the plate to the case! Luckily, after flipping it over I noticed that the plate extended past the drive a little bit, just enough to expose a mounting screw hole! This allows us to affix it to the top of the backplane.
Of course this is only one mounting hole exposed here, but if you tighten it and dont swing the case around too much it should be sufficient. Also, if you're able to throw this case around (full of drives or not), then you should stop building computers and enter a bodybuilding competition.
Here is the finished product of one drive mounted in this fashion:
Looks like I've run out of attachments (5 max), so I'll continue this in the next post!
