Does a modern 7200rpm drive _NEED_ dedicated cooling?

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

I'm finally building myself a newer PC and am confused about whether or
not my 80gig WD 7200rpm S-ATA drive needs its own dedicated cooling.
According to WD's site, not really. According to sites devoted to
gaming PCs, yes.

The case already has one intake fan, one exhaust fan, and a twin-fan
power supply. It IS an older case, though, so there is no provision for
mounting the drive directly in the airflow of the intake fan (like I
see on most other cases).

I'd _like_ to stay away from yet more fans. A lot of the "hard drive
coolers" I see look like they just churn a bunch of already hot air.
Others seem to be large heatsink/fan combinations that pull in air from
the front bezel, but again it's more noise.

Thoughts? Opinions? Will the drive live a shorter life if I just mount
it in the 3-1/2 bay below the floppy?

Thank you.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

terrancedrith@yahoo.com wrote:

> I'm finally building myself a newer PC and am confused about whether or
> not my 80gig WD 7200rpm S-ATA drive needs its own dedicated cooling.
> According to WD's site, not really. According to sites devoted to
> gaming PCs, yes.
>
> The case already has one intake fan, one exhaust fan, and a twin-fan
> power supply. It IS an older case, though, so there is no provision for
> mounting the drive directly in the airflow of the intake fan (like I
> see on most other cases).
>
> I'd _like_ to stay away from yet more fans. A lot of the "hard drive
> coolers" I see look like they just churn a bunch of already hot air.
> Others seem to be large heatsink/fan combinations that pull in air from
> the front bezel, but again it's more noise.
>
> Thoughts? Opinions? Will the drive live a shorter life if I just mount
> it in the 3-1/2 bay below the floppy?

All drives need some kind of cooling. How much depends on the drive and
whether they need dedicated cooling depends on the enclosure.

As for coolers that "churn a bunch of already hot air", hot air forced to
move past the drive will keep it cooler than equally hot air that is
stagnant around the drive.

Get a good SMART tool, stick the drive in, run it hard, watch the
temperature, see what happens. If it stays cool you've got no problem, if
it gets hot then you need more cooling.

If you want to be hardcore then get spend the ten bucks for a 62C Tempilstik
<http://store.weldingdepot.com/cgi/weldingdepot/TS0144.html?id=MPUqKsfw>
(one should last you the rest of your life), put a mark on the case (see
your drive manufacturer's installation manual for the location--if you
can't find one the Seagate manual is typical
<http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/manuals/ata/cuda_72008_pm.pdf>), run
it for a while, again hard as you can, pull it, and if the mark has melted
add cooling.

> Thank you.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Nope, some dont, particularly when used in a case with
a spare bay on either side of it and decent case cooling.

<terrancedrith@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1106770998.195517.27000@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...

> I'm finally building myself a newer PC and am confused about
> whether or not my 80gig WD 7200rpm S-ATA drive needs its
> own dedicated cooling. According to WD's site, not really.

They're right.

> According to sites devoted to gaming PCs, yes.

They're wrong, and its completely trivial to prove by
monitoring the internal drive temp using a SMART ute.

> The case already has one intake fan, one
> exhaust fan, and a twin-fan power supply.

What matters much more is whether the drive will be
rammed right up against another drive, particularly
another 7200 rpm drive. That cuts the airflow over
the drive even in a case with fans like that.

> It IS an older case, though, so there is no provision
> for mounting the drive directly in the airflow of the
> intake fan (like I see on most other cases).

A new case doesnt cost much.

> I'd _like_ to stay away from yet more fans.

Yeah, I prefer a very quiet system myself, so
I dont even have that many fans in it myself.

Just have a very quiet power supply fan and a
very quiet Samsung drive, monitor the drive temp,
see it stay well within specs, even in the hottest
days in summer, and revel in the piece and quiet.

> A lot of the "hard drive coolers" I see look
> like they just churn a bunch of already hot air.

Nope, they can be useful.

> Others seem to be large heatsink/fan combinations that
> pull in air from the front bezel, but again it's more noise.

Yep.

> Thoughts? Opinions? Will the drive live a shorter life
> if I just mount it in the 3-1/2 bay below the floppy?

Generally best to have a free slot between them.

Thats normally fine with a case with that many fans.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

Previously terrancedrith@yahoo.com wrote:
> I'm finally building myself a newer PC and am confused about whether or
> not my 80gig WD 7200rpm S-ATA drive needs its own dedicated cooling.
> According to WD's site, not really. According to sites devoted to
> gaming PCs, yes.

Depends. If it has its own airstream from the outside, it will be
o.k. in most cases. If not, it depends on usage pattern, mounting
method, air-temperature, airflow in the case, etc.. You cannot cool a
HDD too much. But you can cool it too little, severely shortening its
life and many people do so without knowing or understanding the
problem.

> The case already has one intake fan, one exhaust fan, and a twin-fan
> power supply. It IS an older case, though, so there is no provision for
> mounting the drive directly in the airflow of the intake fan (like I
> see on most other cases).

The problem with that is that air from the outside is cool. Air alrerady
inside the case may not be.

> I'd _like_ to stay away from yet more fans. A lot of the "hard drive
> coolers" I see look like they just churn a bunch of already hot air.
> Others seem to be large heatsink/fan combinations that pull in air from
> the front bezel, but again it's more noise.

> Thoughts? Opinions? Will the drive live a shorter life if I just mount
> it in the 3-1/2 bay below the floppy?

Depends. Single drives firmly screwed into metal bays can be
surprisingly well cooled. The only good way to tell is to
measure:

- Run the drive at your expected maximum load. Personally I found
that modern drives don't take much more energy during seek than
during mixed r/w operation, so you can just copy a large number
of files around. Do this for at leat 10 minutes, better half an
hour.
- Measure temperature with a SMART utility (e.g. the smartmontools).
- Measure your room temperature and add the difference between current
temperature and maximum expected tempereature you want to run the
computer in to the measured HDD temperature.

If the result is over 55C you should definitely get better cooling.
Mosts HDDs will start to have significantly shorter lifes when run
over 55C...60C.

If you find this procedure is too complicated, the just get reasonable
airflow from the outside to your drive. Since most people are not
willing or able to do reasonable measurements, the general recomendation
is more cooling than strictly necessary.

Arno
--
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