Cooling 4 HDDs in an Antec Performance 1 P160 Case

[Fred Finisterre]

So I'm beginning to think that I'm having so many hard drive failures due to
heat. What's the hottest a drive should ever get according to S.M.A.R.T. ?

And if I put 4 250GB SATA drives in an Antec Performance 1 P160 case, should
I provide extra cooling for them? If so, how? My machine runs 24x7.

Thanks,

Fred.

 

[Mike Redrobe]

So I'm beginning to think that I'm having so many hard drive failures due
to
heat. What's the hottest a drive should ever get according to S.M.A.R.T. ?

Many smart monitors have the shutdown temperature for HDDs set to 55 C
as the default....

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

So I'm beginning to think that I'm having so many hard drive failures due to
heat.

Not Maxtor are they?

What's the hottest a drive should ever get according to S.M.A.R.T. ?

Check the maker's specs for the maximum operating temperature for your
particular model. It's in the region of 50-60 deg C for most drives,
though I suggest that ideally you don't allow them to get more than hand
warm (about 45C max.)

And if I put 4 250GB SATA drives in an Antec Performance 1 P160 case, should
I provide extra cooling for them?

Absolutely yes, if you're planning to stack them together in the drive
bay with little or no air gap between them.

If so, how?

Install them in the 5.25" bays in drive cooler trays instead of the 3.5"
bays.

 

[Fred Finisterre]

Not Maxtor are they?
I *have* had a lot of problems with Maxtors. Why do you say that?

Think I'm gonna get Seagate this time.

Cheers,

Fred.

 

[John Smith]

I *have* had a lot of problems with Maxtors. Why do you say that?

Think I'm gonna get Seagate this time.

Cheers,

Fred.

I am pleased with my Samsungs.

 

[J. Clarke]

Not Maxtor are they?


Check the maker's specs for the maximum operating temperature for your
particular model. It's in the region of 50-60 deg C for most drives,
though I suggest that ideally you don't allow them to get more than hand
warm (about 45C max.)


Absolutely yes, if you're planning to stack them together in the drive
bay with little or no air gap between them.


Install them in the 5.25" bays in drive cooler trays instead of the 3.5"
bays.

Take a look at that case before you recommend that. There's a bracket for a
120mm fan pointed directly at the disk cage, with huge vent holes in front
of it. Seems to me that just sticking mongo fan in the bracket would do
the job just fine and the big slow fan would probably last a lot longer and
be quieter than all the busy little fans in the drive cooler trays, not to
mention moving more air over the drives with the huge vent holes.

Between that and the 120mm fan in back and the power supply besides, one
thing that case does not appear to lack is airflow.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Many smart monitors have the shutdown temperature for HDDs set to 55 C
as the default....

Utter nonsense.

 

[jacoby]

If you do not have a front case fan. Get a 120mm for the front.

 

[Matt]

So I'm beginning to think that I'm having so many hard drive failures due to
heat. What's the hottest a drive should ever get according to S.M.A.R.T. ?

What do you mean by "hard drive failures" and just how many "hard drive
failures" are you getting?

 

[Ed_]

So I'm beginning to think that I'm having so many hard drive failures due to
heat. What's the hottest a drive should ever get according to S.M.A.R.T. ?

And if I put 4 250GB SATA drives in an Antec Performance 1 P160 case, should
I provide extra cooling for them? If so, how? My machine runs 24x7.

Thanks,

Fred.

Fred, I don't know about running 4 Sata drives in that case but I have a
SuperLanboy, which is designed very similar, with 2 IDE 120's and a Sata 160.
They are mounted in the drive cage with a 120 fan blowing directly on them and
they stay cool to the touch, even when encoding large dvd video files with the
cpu running strong for long periods of time.

I would think that you could expect the same results, even with 4.

Of all the various cases I have used, this design seems to be one of the best
for hard drive cooling as well as overall temperature control.

Ed

 

[TonyC]

So I'm beginning to think that I'm having so many hard drive failures due

to
heat. What's the hottest a drive should ever get according to S.M.A.R.T. ?

And if I put 4 250GB SATA drives in an Antec Performance 1 P160 case,
should
I provide extra cooling for them? If so, how? My machine runs 24x7.

Thanks,

Fred.

There's a 120mm fan slot in front of the 3.5" drive bays, why dont you use
it?


Tony

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

I *have* had a lot of problems with Maxtors. Why do you say that?

I have had personal experience of a very high failure rate of Maxtors at
work, and anecdotal evidence from usenet suggests that I am not the only
one.

All drive makers will produce turkeys from time to time, so there's no
point in saying "always buy brand X." The best choice *currently* seems
to be Seagate, and their 5 year warranty gives more confidence. I have
two Seagates - an 80gb Barra IV PATA and a 160gb Barra 7200.7 SATA.

John Clarke's comments about the 120mm fan for the drive bays in the
case you've chosen are useful (I didn't look up the case to see its
features), though you should still monitor the drives' SMART
temperatures and consider moving, say, two into other bays if they do
run hot if installed as a stack.

The good thing about them being SATA drives is that the cabling in
point-to-point so your choice of drive placement is not restricted by
needing to put two on the same cable.

If heat is a concern, and you plan to run the drives in RAID, consider
buying 5400rpm drives instead of 7200rpm. The slower rotational speed
will mean they'll run cooler, and RAIDing them will compensate for the
slightly lower performance. If the machine is a network server, the
bottleneck is more likely to be your NIC than your drives.

 

[Mike Redrobe]

Utter nonsense.

Care to give a useful reply, or just trolling today folkert?
I guess you've now latched on to me, like you have to Arno. Ho hum.

Anyway, the smart monitor program listed below had a system shutdown
set to 55 for HDDs
http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/hdd-temperature.html
so did a few others I tried...

HDD spec sheets (I`ll let you look them up folkert) show max operating
temps of 55 - 60, its not hard to kep them to 40ish with minimal airflow

 

[Trevor Best]

Take a look at that case before you recommend that. There's a bracket for a
120mm fan pointed directly at the disk cage, with huge vent holes in front
of it. Seems to me that just sticking mongo fan in the bracket would do
the job just fine and the big slow fan would probably last a lot longer and
be quieter than all the busy little fans in the drive cooler trays, not to
mention moving more air over the drives with the huge vent holes.

Between that and the 120mm fan in back and the power supply besides, one
thing that case does not appear to lack is airflow.

I have 3 HDDs in an Antec Super Lanboy case with a 120mm fan on the
cage, 2 are RAID 1 so the temp isn't reported but the single disk
reports a cool 29C.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I have had personal experience of a very high failure rate of Maxtors at
work, and anecdotal evidence from usenet suggests that I am not the only
one.

All drive makers will produce turkeys from time to time, so there's no
point in saying "always buy brand X." The best choice *currently* seems
to be Seagate, and their 5 year warranty gives more confidence. I have
two Seagates - an 80gb Barra IV PATA and a 160gb Barra 7200.7 SATA.

John Clarke's comments about the 120mm fan for the drive bays in the
case you've chosen are useful (I didn't look up the case to see its
features), though you should still monitor the drives' SMART
temperatures and consider moving, say, two into other bays
if they do run hot if installed as a stack.

The good thing about them being SATA drives is that the cabling in
point-to-point so your choice of drive placement is not restricted by
needing to put two on the same cable.

If heat is a concern, and you plan to run the drives in RAID, consider
buying 5400rpm drives instead of 7200rpm. The slower rotational
speed will mean they'll run cooler,

and RAIDing them will compensate for the slightly lower performance.

Nonsense, no form of (striped) RAID will compensate for the bigger
latency of a 5400RPM drive vs that of a 7200RPM drive.

And whether a 5400 rpm drive will run cooler than a 7200 rpm drive
also depends on the number of platters used in the drive, quality of
bearings, spindle motor efficiency and maybe acoustic management.