I just bought a new internal SATA hard drive, and the only room left in my desktop computer case is a slot in the same cage that holds the Blu-ray drive, right underneath said Blu-ray drive. It's a tight slot. There are no screw holes. The hard drive fits in very snugly. Is it safe to install it in that slot, or should I use an external hard drive enclosure?
Is it safe to install hard drive in slot without screws?
- Thread starter hbenthow
- Start date
Solution
ThatVietGuy
Titan
- Nov 6, 2007
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The only reason you really want to screw down the HDD is so that it doesn't fumble around if the case gets moved.
It's fine where it is if it doesn't seem like it'll make its way out of the slot, but if it falls while the computer is on say goodbye to your data.
It's fine where it is if it doesn't seem like it'll make its way out of the slot, but if it falls while the computer is on say goodbye to your data.
If you skip to about 7:50 in the following video (a demonstration of the model of computer I have), you can see where the CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive is. There's a small slot right under the CD drive slot, in the same cage. That's literally the only place in the entire case that a hard drive can be installed. The drive fits very snugly. I'm not worried about it wiggling around. What I am worried about are A: heat, and B: electrical issues, as it is laying directly on top of the aluminum of the bottom of the slot, and has the Blu-ray drive directly on top of it.
HP Compaq NV471UT 6005 Pro Desktop
synphul
Champion
- Mar 11, 2011
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That green thing is the pcb board with the drive controller and cache chips. If it were to come into contact with a metal surface that actually bridged those soldered connections to one another it could very well fry your hard drive. If you place some electrical tape on the aluminum frame portion of the drive cage where it could potentially come into contact with the soldered hdd pcb connections, it would prevent that from happening. It won't be directly stuck to the drive (which might inhibit heat dissipation) and then if the drive moved and came to rest on the drive cage floor it would be insulated from the aluminum.
synphul
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- Mar 11, 2011
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If you're concerned about temps, try using a program like hwmonitor that reads component temps from their sensors. It will at least give you a fairly accurate approximation of the drive temps. All you can do is try it. It would depend on your ambient temps too somewhat (whatever your room is) but generally if a drive is hovering in the mid to upper 40's (celsius) or up in the 50's it would time to consider an alternative solution. Right now the room my pc is in is probably close to 70F/21C and my hard drive is 31C which is pretty normal (10C over ambient). Even if you keep your pc room at 80F, normal temps should be around 37C. If your room temps are 80F/26.6C and your hdd temps are coming back 46C then I'd attribute it to poor ventilation/cooling and consider additional cooling fans for airflow or an external enclosure.
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