An electronic device housing device that can house a plurality of electronic devices, such as a hard disk drive (HDD), a power source device, and a circuit substrate, inside a housing is known in the art. Examples of the electronic device housing device include a storage device equipped with a plurality of HDDs, a control device that controls the HDDs, and a power source device.
In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for thin storage devices that can house several HDDs arranged side by side in a row on one to three shelves. The thin storage devices are mainly used as placed on a rack. Such storage devices are called “rack-mounted storage devices”.
A plurality of slots partitioned by a plurality of partition plates are provided in the housing of the storage device to allow a cartridge HDD carried on a carrier with a grip to be housed in each of the slots.
An HDD is a storage device that magnetically stores data utilizing a rotatable magnetic disk medium and a magnetic head. Mechanical parts such as the magnetic disk medium and the magnetic head are housed in a sealed case.
A connection substrate formed by a single plate and equipped with a plurality of connection terminals is disposed near the center of the housing of the storage device. The plurality of connection terminals are disposed in parallel on the connection substrate to face the slots, and electrically connected to external connection terminals and power source terminals of the HDDs.
The connection substrate is provided near the center portion of the housing as discussed earlier, and therefore divides the housing space inside the housing into a front housing portion and a rear housing portion. The plurality of slots are disposed in the front housing portion, and the control device and the power source device electrically connected to the connection substrate are disposed in the rear housing portion. Each of the HDDs sends and receives a signal to and from the control device, and is supplied with power from the power source device, via the connection substrate.
A cooling fan is provided in the rear housing portion of the housing. The cooling fan is driven to allow a gas to be sucked into the slots from gas suction ports provided in a front panel of the housing and the carriers.
The sucked gas flows straight into the rear housing portion while cooling the HDDs in the slots, cools the control device and the power source device, and thereafter is discharged from an exhaust port provided in the rear wall surface of the housing. The HDDs, the control device, and the power source device are cooled by such an air-cooling structure. However, the plate-shaped connection substrate provided near the center portion obstructs the gas flow linearly guided from the gas suction ports to the rear housing portion across the connection substrate.
Examples of the related art described above are disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-170649 and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 11-204974.
In recent years, it has been further desired to reduce the thickness of a storage device. Reducing the thickness, however, makes it difficult to secure a passage of a gas for cooling electronic devices.