Best air cooler with the hdd

[naokuronao]

Hello I'm new to this forum and I'm interested in getting the ncase m1!

I was wondering what is the best air cooler for the m1 with using the hdd on the bracket. I'm going to be moving 2 of my hdd to the bracket.

I'm also hoping the hdd bracket is still available for the next version as I see there are some changes going on.

 

[sheepdog43]

Pretty sure the Noctua U9s (with a second fan) is your best choice.

There's no way to fit the C14s with the bracket.

 

[naokuronao]

@sheepdog43 Thanks for the reply! I will look into that cooler! What do you think of the Be quiet dark rock tf? I've seen some post and photos people using that with and hdd bracket. Would that be a decent cooler as well?

 

[rcradiator]

@sheepdog43 Thanks for the reply! I will look into that cooler! What do you think of the Be quiet dark rock tf? I've seen some post and photos people using that with and hdd bracket. Would that be a decent cooler as well?

It's good as well, but it's notorious for being an absolute pain in the ass to install and also interfering with motherboard vrm heatsinks. I can say for certain all the Asus Strix ITX boards are a no go if you want to use the Dark Rock TF. Not sure what other boards are affected, but there's a bunch. If you can, see if you can buy a C14 off someone in the Buy and Sell section here as it's the only other option if you want to do push pull on the heatsink. Alternatively, just use the C14s with a 120mm fan on the bottom.

 

[sheepdog43]

The C14 fan inteferes with the psu, the heatsink itself inteferes with the drive cage, doesn't matter if it's a C14 or C14S.

Regardless of how much smaller some other cases are, the Ncase is not big, it fills up VERY fast, you can't really just load it up with everything but the kitchen sink and expect it to work well, especially if you have a GPU and high end CPU. This is why mainstream ITX cases are so much larger. My advice is don't even install the hdds, build yourself a small file server from spare parts and install your drives in that. This simplifies your system and allows better/quieter cooling in your case (or a smaller case), allows a smaller psu and gives you the ability to access your files even when your own system is down. It also let's you offload backups, downloads, and keeps your data a bit better protected from viruses (especially if you use a different operating system).

 

[rfarmer]

@sheepdog43 Thanks for the reply! I will look into that cooler! What do you think of the Be quiet dark rock tf? I've seen some post and photos people using that with and hdd bracket. Would that be a decent cooler as well?

Here is a picture of my Ncase with the Dark Rock TF and the HDD bracket installed to show that it would fit.

Like @rcradiator said it is very motherboard specific. Check the Be Quiet site for motherboard compatibility before purchase. This cooler is very large and depending on orientation it can interfere with both the VRM heat sinks and the ram, it can also block the PCI slot.

 

[sheepdog43]

I said the C14 wouldn't fit with the bracket, I never mentioned the Darkrock.

The DarkRock has been shown to be pretty much equivalent to the U9s, however it costs $20 more on average. If you like it, great, but given a choice I'd take a Noctua, especially when it's cheaper.

 

[Necere]

I believe the Scythe Kabuto 3 will work with the drive cage as well.