Fractal Define R5 for home server, airflow considerations.

[Rysters Tech]

I am looking to replace the case for my home server, it currently has 3 HDD drives in it plus a hot swappable drive bay that goes in a 5.25 inch slot, that is used for transferring to offsite backup drives, as this system has no USB 3.0.

The hardware is a Xeon E3-1230V2 on a supermicro x9scm-f matx board with a thermalright SI-100 cooler, due to height restrictions of my current case.

 

I am wondering if the airflow in this case is enough for the hardware im using, i have 2 120mm fans i can reuse in the new case alongside the included ones. I am in an air conditioned space but my room can reach 80F (26C) due to the extremely hot summers in Louisiana, but i am ok with opening the door in the summer. 

 

I dont plan on ever putting higher TDP chips in here like LGA2011 Xeon's or anything like that, if anything i will go ryzen 5000 way in the future, i may add in an HBA, but i can just use the side moduvent as an intake ( i can get filters for it ).
 

 

[Hinjima]

12 minutes ago, Rysters Tech said:

I am looking to replace the case for my home server, it currently has 3 HDD drives in it plus a hot swappable drive bay that goes in a 5.25 inch slot, that is used for transferring to offsite backup drives, as this system has no USB 3.0.

The hardware is a Xeon E3-1230V2 on a supermicro x9scm-f matx board with a thermalright SI-100 cooler, due to height restrictions of my current case.

 

I am wondering if the airflow in this case is enough for the hardware im using, i have 2 120mm fans i can reuse in the new case alongside the included ones. I am in an air conditioned space but my room can reach 80F (26C) due to the extremely hot summers in Louisiana, but i am ok with opening the door in the summer. 

 

I dont plan on ever putting higher TDP chips in here like LGA2011 Xeon's or anything like that, if anything i will go ryzen 5000 way in the future, i may add in an HBA, but i can just use the side moduvent as an intake ( i can get filters for it ).
 

 

I had a Define R5 with my 9900k overclocked to 5.1ghz all core with NH-D14 + overclocked RTX 2080 Super.  Had great temperatures and no issues with the included 2 front fans and rear exhaust on the R5

I had the front door slightly open during hot days.

[manikyath]

i have my old trusty R5 with the front door closed, the two original fans in the front at whatever low speed is on the builtin fan controller, and a roughly matched fan in the back..

and that's handling a r7 5800x and GTX970 fine just fine.

 

it's ofcourse nothing compared to the windtunnel that is my custom made server chassis, but people tend to overestimate just how much airflow is necessary.

[OhioYJ]

1 hour ago, Rysters Tech said:

I am wondering if the airflow in this case is enough for the hardware im using

So when I was using this case for my NAS (I switched to the larger Define 7XL) I modified the front panel to allow for more air flow. I used a grille from AC Infinity:

 

 

 

It allows the front fans to really breathe.  I actually did the same thing to the new case:

 

 

I had also removed most of the extra panels on my R5, so I could add more fans.

 

 

[Rysters Tech]

8 hours ago, Hinjima said:

I had a Define R5 with my 9900k overclocked to 5.1ghz all core with NH-D14 + overclocked RTX 2080 Super.  Had great temperatures and no issues with the included 2 front fans and rear exhaust on the R5

I had the front door slightly open during hot days.

I will go with the define R5, heard good things about and its on discount at newegg, gotta get one while i can as i dont believe its in production anymore.

[kokosnh]

the current build, but I will swap all the fans for 6 x Toughfan 14 for R5, and 2 x Toughfan 12 on the CPU coller