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Does vertical orientation mess with the airflow and cooling?
- Thread starter waloshin
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Well, in my opinion either the NVMe disk (a big heatsink actually) and the Mini are meant to be placed horizontally. But ... if I needed them vertically I would place the Mini on the left and the disk on the right side.
Now (as they are placed on the picture) the disk affects the airflow for the Mini's intake. Also the Mini directly sucks part of the hot air from the heatsink.
Now (as they are placed on the picture) the disk affects the airflow for the Mini's intake. Also the Mini directly sucks part of the hot air from the heatsink.
That setup looks very good.
Can you tell us where you got the stand(s) from?
Can you tell us where you got the stand(s) from?
Very true but you would just switch the way the dock sat on your desk to have the OWC drive face the front of your M4 instead of near the intake.
The reason the Mac Mini has a fan is so that it does not rely on the warm air rising. IOW, you should be fine.
The stands look neat but I wonder about their thermal insulating quality.
I use solid aluminum stands that make good heat sinks: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B83Y2MGM/?th=1
Perhaps the OWC SSD (and other TB enclosures) may like that better.
The stands look neat but I wonder about their thermal insulating quality.
I use solid aluminum stands that make good heat sinks: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B83Y2MGM/?th=1
Perhaps the OWC SSD (and other TB enclosures) may like that better.
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Here is already a discussion about this topic in more details.
Warm air goes up, and that direction is due to gravity. I wouldn't call that negligible.
I'd say the slower the fan is turning, or if it is off, the more of a difference will it make. It will affect heat flow in the case. Whether it's detrimental or beneficial is anyone's guess. Since Apple doesn't warn against it (or do they?), it should be more or less fine.
If the device depended on convection cooling, sure, then you are right. The fan in Mini spins at least 1000 rpm (at least that is min my will allow) and in that case convection is negligible and gravity force will have no impact. We are talking about forced air cooling (1-2W? fan) compared to difference in air density at height difference of max 4 inches. Let's be real here...
PC cases used to have the PSU at the top above the CPU, and the design was changed to have them at the bottom, at least in part for thermal management reasons, despite both the PSU and the CPU being cooled by fans. And I have a mini PC where I do observe a different heat distribution depending on how I orient it.
If anything, it’s the efficiency of the Mac mini/M4 that might make the difference negligible, but not the particular scale.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Should be fine but if you are worried about "sucking in heat" from the drive, rotate the stand so that top of mini is left of OWC enclosure.
Possible bonus: if the Bluetooth and/or wifi antennas are still in the bottom piece of the Mini, added exposure might give you a slightly better connection at a distance by not having a wall of metal so close to the bottom. I don't know if this is still how they make them or not but seems plausible.
Possible bonus: if the Bluetooth and/or wifi antennas are still in the bottom piece of the Mini, added exposure might give you a slightly better connection at a distance by not having a wall of metal so close to the bottom. I don't know if this is still how they make them or not but seems plausible.