harddrive fans

[No One]

I've seen various harddrive fans and I wonder if they make a difference.
I see how the ones that go in front of a harddrive could work, but the
ones that attach below a harddrive don't look like they would have
enough room to move air. What's the scoop?

 

[Don Taylor]

I've seen various harddrive fans and I wonder if they make a difference.
I see how the ones that go in front of a harddrive could work, but the
ones that attach below a harddrive don't look like they would have
enough room to move air. What's the scoop?

The ones that attach below, and I've got one of those, seem to be
a fairly thick aluminum sheet and bolt directly to the frame of the
drive. Then I'm guessing they are trying to act like a heat sink,
conduct heat from the frame to the sheet and the fans the blow air
between sheet and drive, cooling the sheet of aluminum, and thus
the drive.

See if you can measure the temperature of the metal case of your drive.
THen consider that raising the temp every x degrees cuts the life of
semiconductors, and probably motors, bearings, etc, by 1/2. Try to
decide whether the drive will be so tiny by the time it has a chance
of failing that you won't care and will throw it away anyway.

 

[spodosaurus]

I've seen various harddrive fans and I wonder if they make a difference.
I see how the ones that go in front of a harddrive could work, but the
ones that attach below a harddrive don't look like they would have
enough room to move air. What's the scoop?

The best hard drive cooling performance I've achieved was moving my
computer to a new Antec case (SLK3000B) with a five hard drive mounting
bracket (as it turns out, I have five hard drives in this computer).
Even with the plastic front fan clip located in front of the drives, as
long as I have the Vantec Stealth 120mm fan running on 5V rather than
12V the system is nice and quiet (even with the Antec fan running at max
at the back and another Vantec Stealth running on 5V on the side panel).
However, when I touch the outside of the drives, they're luke warm.
Three of these drives are Seagates that used to run VERY hot. Not
exactly the answer you were looking for, but another perspective: buying
a case to suit your hard drive cooling needs.

Cheers,

Ari

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[John Doe]

The ones that attach below, and I've got one of those, seem to
be a fairly thick aluminum sheet and bolt directly to the frame
of the drive. Then I'm guessing they are trying to act like a
heat sink, conduct heat from the frame to the sheet and the fans
the blow air between sheet and drive, cooling the sheet of
aluminum, and thus the drive.
See if you can measure the temperature of the metal case of your
drive. THen consider that raising the temp every x degrees cuts
the life of semiconductors, and probably motors, bearings, etc,
by 1/2.

Every x degrees? From what starting point? I think you have about
25% of the equation there.

Manufacturers of common hard disk drives list the maximum ambient
temperature, the maximum temperature of the air around the drive.
Provided there is at least a small amount of clearance around the
disk, blowing room temperature air over the drive will keep it
cool.

Apparently similar to spodosaurus's case, the Antec SLK3700 has a
drive caddy right next to a large (120 mm) intake fan. I have no
more worries about hard disk drive temperature.

Have fun.

 

[Some Guy]

I've seen various harddrive fans and I wonder if they make a
difference.

I seal the computer case with tape on the inside so that there is no
way for air to get inside. Then I mount the hard drive on brackets
and mount it in a 5" drive bay. I drill holes in the plastic bezel of
the drive bay cover. When the power supply fan draws air into the
computer the only place it can come from is through the holes in the
bezel in front of the hard drive. This is more effective (for air
flow) if you have 3 stacked 5" drive bays and you mount the hard drive
in the middle and 2 optical drives above and below it.

 

[John Doe]

No One wrote:

I seal the computer case with tape on the inside so that there
is no way for air to get inside. Then I mount the hard drive on
brackets and mount it in a 5" drive bay. I drill holes in the
plastic bezel of the drive bay cover. When the power supply fan
draws air into the computer the only place it can come from is
through the holes in the bezel in front of the hard drive. This
is more effective (for air flow) if you have 3 stacked 5" drive
bays and you mount the hard drive in the middle and 2 optical
drives above and below it.

As has been mentioned here before. Providing negative air pressure
inside of the case sucks outside/dusty air in through your optical
drives.

 

[Some Guy]

As has been mentioned here before. Providing negative air pressure
inside of the case sucks outside/dusty air in through your optical
drives.

No.

First, optical drives are always fully enclosed all the way around.

Second, air will flow though the holes in the bezel in front of the
hard drive. Air will not flow in through the CD/DVD drives.

You just have to drill enough holes to make the bezel in front of the
hard drive look like swiss cheese. 3 rows of 1/4" holes (say 8 holes
per row) will do the job.

If you don't care how it looks, you can remove the bezel completely.
The drive will be cool to the touch because of the air flow.

 

[Terry Wilson]

No.

First, optical drives are always fully enclosed all the way around.

Second, air will flow though the holes in the bezel in front of the
hard drive. Air will not flow in through the CD/DVD drives.

You just have to drill enough holes to make the bezel in front of the
hard drive look like swiss cheese. 3 rows of 1/4" holes (say 8 holes
per row) will do the job.

If you don't care how it looks, you can remove the bezel completely.
The drive will be cool to the touch because of the air flow.

I'd agree with John Doe on this. It's always seemed to me that providing
positive filtered air pressure inside the case would keep everything
much cleaner, as the escaping air has little dust to leave behind.
And the air will find every little crack and cranny.

This has always been a hotly debated topic.

 

[Some Guy]

I'd agree with John Doe on this. It's always seemed to me that
providing positive filtered air pressure inside the case would
keep everything much cleaner, as the escaping air has little
dust to leave behind. And the air will find every little
crack and cranny.

This has always been a hotly debated topic.

A few months ago I retro-fitted about 8 tower cases with new Zalman
power supplies and new motherboards with the big copper/aluminum
Zalman CPU heat sinks. I sealed the cases except (naturally) for the
power supply fan. I mounted the hard drives on brackets in 5" drive
bay.

A few years ago we had a couple of servers that had those ventilated
5" bezels with 3 small fans built into the bezel. They were
absolutely filled with lint / dust. I removed the fans, cleaned the
bezel, and put the fan-less bezels in front of the hard drive in the
retro-fitted PC's.

These Zalman power suppies don't exactly create a huge air flow in the
case that would turn it into a vacuum cleaner, so the issue of
positive or negative air flow is I think kind of extreme. An ordinary
bezel with 24 holes drilled into it will create enough of an opening
to allow air to be pulled into the case without causing any buildup of
vacuum inside the case that would lead air to try to get in from other
places. Removing the bezel completely would certainly be enough of an
opening for this.

If you want a quite PC without extra fans, then this is the best way
to mount the hard drive and cool it.

 

[forumposter32]

No.

First, optical drives are always fully enclosed all the way
around.

Second, air will flow though the holes in the bezel in front
of the
hard drive. Air will not flow in through the CD/DVD drives.

You just have to drill enough holes to make the bezel in front
of the
hard drive look like swiss cheese. 3 rows of 1/4" holes (say
8 holes
per row) will do the job.

If you don't care how it looks, you can remove the bezel
completely.
The drive will be cool to the touch because of the air flow.

Does anyone here know if they work with Western Digital hard drives?
I got one and a hard drive cooler, but when my machine would not
"see" the hard drive, I decided to pull out and push back in the
power connector, removed the jumper and took the hard drive cooler.
Now my machine sees my hard drive but I don’t know which of the three
things I did that fixed the problem.