Recently moved and where I want setup my HL15 it makes more sense to mount it vertically. But as I’m looking at it, seems like I’m going to be fighting thermodynamics as the cold air intake will be on the top and the hot exhaust (out the back) will be down low.
Has anyone looked at mounting vertically, but with the PS / IO on top and the front cover facing down? That way the intake fans are pulling in colder air from the bottom.
Or would it be better to reverse all the HDD fans and have them exhaust out the front so it still pulls from the bottom (back) and exhausts out the front? I can probably do that, but seems like it’d generate more heat across the HDDs.
I think the premise is flawed. The convection inside the case isn’t really an issue. The fans will be easily able to push hot air out the bottom even at low RPMs. I certainly wouldn’t push hot air from the CPU chamber over the HDDs; they intentionally put the HDDs at the front of the intake for a reason on all these storage servers. I’m not sure if there’s something else about the room that you’re trying to accommodate for by placing it with the exhaust at the top, but if it comes out the bottom it is just going to mix with the ambient air like a normal server rack unless you’ve got a particularly specific cooling setup in the room.
If you absolutely want the intake at the bottom, you probably need to build your own enclosure/shelf with a cutout for the fans that leaves a bezel over maybe 1/2 inch of each side of the case for support and then you’d screw it down from the back of the rack ears into the shelf to keep it from tipping over. You’d also need to be cognizant of the lid thumbscrews, so it might just be a three sided opening.
The HL15 is designed to sit on its side (with the included feet). Is there a way to mount it in this “vertical” orientation so the airflow continues to move front to back?
How are you planning on mounting and to what?
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The room I’m using for my office and the closet that will house all the homelab gear has nice shelving in it. So rather than rip it out (and redo drywall, etc…) I’m going to use some of these 4U vertical wall mounts.
They are rated for 175 lbs when lagged into the studs…but my HL15 is no where near that heavy. Was really just thinking if there were a way to try and work with convection vs against it since the chassis will be hanging vertically.
I guess I could mount that low on the wall and set the HL15 on it upside down and then bolt it in. But that feels even a little too janky for me.
Really was just curious if anyone else had tried anything similar. I’ll get it mounted up and watch temps and see how it goes.
(And yes, I’ve taken care of ventilation. My next door neighbor is an HVAC tech and when he came and did the initial inspection of the units he helped me put an 8” return line in the closet so it’ll consistently exhaust hot air out the top. Ties into the main HVAC return and has a duct fan as well for 24x7 operation. Did it at my previous house and worked great.)
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I think your temps will be fine.
I don’t do metalwork, but my understanding is the 16 ga steel of the HL15 is relatively easy to work with. You could tap some screw holes and mount the rack ears on the back of the chassis; you probably need to use heavier duty bolts, self driving screws or rivet nuts though since the rack ear screws as designed aren’t intended to be load bearing.
There are also holes along the sides of the chassis intended for mounting the rail kit; I think the first hole is about 2.5 inches from the rear. You could utilize those holes and some sort of L brackets or slotted bars/brackets to hang the server upside down.
Your HVAC tech neighbor probably has the tools and skill to mount the rack ears or other brackets to the back of the case. Of course you’d need to do some disassembly before drilling if you can’t reuse the screw holes for the rack rails.
My main concern is not related to thermals, but rather the weight distribution. In this setup, the full weight of the server would be supported by the rack ears. Those ears were not designed or tested to carry the full weight of the unit. Their intended purpose is to prevent the server from sliding too far back in a rack and to allow the HL15 to be secured in place.
Because of this, I cannot say with certainty that the rack ears would safely support the total weight of the HL15 along with 15 HDDs when mounted vertically.
If possible, I would recommend considering a mounting solution that connects to the rear of the unit and supports the chassis itself when attaching it to the wall. This would provide much better structural support for the system.
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Spit balling here - what about taking two of the 4U vertical wall mounts so that rails could also be used? That way the unit would have support from the rails and wouldn’t only be hanging on the rack ears. You could also consider the side mount option too since the rails would provide support. I don’t know if that’ll be too much on the bottom rail.
------CEILING------
|M|===RAIL===|M|
|O| |O|
|U| HL15 |U|
|N| |N|
|T|===RAIL===|T|
-------FLOOR-------
