Hard-drives and heat

[error_911]

Now, the case I've got isn't great, though I've modded it quite a bit, and it's kind-of turned into my ongoing project. Its a Nikao (www.nikao.net) X-Jazz, with a window on the side, 120mm fan in the window, drilled-out front panel, etc, etc, but the way that the HD racks are set up allow for the front intake fan to blow directly onto them. Now, this cools the harddrives (1 Maxtor 40Gig, 1 Western Digital Caviar 1.8Gig), yet blows hot air into my system, and I've been thinking long and hard about putting them in some of the extra 5 1/2" bays with mounts. Now, I basically want to ask opinion about cooling hard drives. Do you cool yours, and whats your reasoning behind it? Is it beneficial, and why? Thanks.

Staggering out of the shower this morning, I hear the hair-dryer. "Whose awake?" I think... Till I realize its my computer - talk about a windtunnel

 

[lhgpoobaa]

I think that with standard IDE hard drives cooling is more or less optional, so long as it has a bare minimum of airflow.
I had 3 stacked closely together in the front of a crap case cooled by 1 casefan with no problems.

Now i have a whizz bang expensive alluminium case with a drive cage right infront of the front air intake. nice to have but not really necessary. It just makes the drives easier to get to.


<b><font color=purple>[Rik_]</font color=purple> I wonder how many people have made their own phasechange system?
<font color=blue>[LHGPooBaa]</font color=blue> I get phasechange whenever i eat a hot chillie :lol: </b>

 

[LCARS]

I repair HDs for Dish Network.

There is very little chance that the heat generated by the HDs under normal use could harm each other.

Actually it's more of a "short answer no, long answer yes" situation.

In theory, the cooler the disk medium the longer it'll retain its little magnetic 1's and 0's. But the "Curie Point" (when something loses it's magnetic field due to heat) of the disk medium is HUNDREDS of degrees above room temp.

All I can really say for sure is: it couldn't hurt.