In this article, I'll show you how to build the cheapest hard drive cooler around. All you need is a fan (92mm or smaller) and some tools. You will also need a metal cutter or jigsaw and a drill to make your screw holes.

In this example, I used a 60x60x25 Elina fan, which does 13CFM. That's just a little above the average 50x50x10 CPU fan. What's the advantage? Well first of all they're cheaper then most 60mm fans. I paid $20 for 3 of them. Also, they use very low current, 0.07 amps. At 12 volts, this gives you a 0.84-watt fan. Hey, you could plug about 295 of these on a 250W power supply! Rated at only 26 decibels, they're also very quiet. With my CPU and power supply fans running, I couldn't hear any sound difference by turning this one on or off. I'm still stuck with a 5400rpm HD anyway so this fan should be enough.

The idea is to place the fan right under the hard-drive, blowing onto it. In most PC cases, a detachable metal rack holds the hard-drives and 3.5 floppy drives. We'll use it to mount the fan. The first thing you need to do is to empty the rack of all drives. Then, you should be able to take it off by unscrewing it from the case. This makes it much easier to work with. In some cases, you'll need to take off the front plate to reach the screws

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