What is Adquate cooling for a 7200RPM Hard Drive?

[rwayne]

I am looking at getting a case that does not have hard drive cooling. Meaning a case with no fan in front of the hard drive cage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108068

If I bought something like this would it be sufficient to cool a 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835200032

Do you only have to cool the top of the hard drive or is cooling the bottom equally as important?

Or can you be just fine with no cooling at all?

I would like to have some type of cooling to increase life expectancy

 

[dagger]

As long as the case has good overall air flow, nothing is needed. Hdds don't get very hot.

 

[masterclam]

it will be fine with no cooling as long as you have reasonable airflow, but keeping it cooler will likely extend the life of your drive; basically putting any sort of fan on it should help cool it well enough, although toms hardware just did an article on two hdd coolers available, i suggest taking a look at that. all depends on your price range. That thing will do something, but not probably a whole lot, also rosewill is known for producing cheap things that fall apart pretty fast (but for 4 bucks it might be completely worth it).

 

[rwayne]

RE: DAGGER

I was building a computer one time and forgot to turn on the hard drive fan. The hard drive got pretty darn hot when I was installing Vista. turned the fan on and it was cool to the touch with in 3 minutes.

So a hard drive does not need cooling even under load?

BTW..thank you for your prompt response to my original post.

 

[masterclam]

the exterior was cool to the touch, doesnt mean the interior was cooled much, however any extra airflow will definitely help; no your normal harddrive should not need extra cooling, but it certainly wont hurt and an extra couple bucks to possibly extend the life of your drive i would say is worth it.

 

[randomizer]

If you really want to cool it, a slow fan gives plenty of cooling to a hard drive. They just need some circulating air around them that's all. Even that isn't usually necessary.

 

[rwayne]

Well that is good to know. I did not expect this type of response from the forum at all.

However I have heard that some high end cases like the Coolermaster Cosmos (or at least the first version of it) had no hard drive cooling at all for all of it's hard drive bays.

 

[cruiseoveride]

As long as the case has good overall air flow, nothing is needed. Hdds don't get very hot.

if you can keep a finger on my WD Caviar for more than 2s without screaming, i'll be very surprised.

I have 4x 500GB WD Caviars in RAID5, all stacked on top of each other, and they heat up like CRAZZZZZZZZZZZY under load. Sometimes i think they'd melt the sata cable.

I'm looking for a cooling solution too, but these drives don't seem to be complaining, so maybe I dont need one.

 

[randomizer]

I used to have a harddrive sitting on bubble-wrap on the bottom of my case and out of the way of what little airflow there was (old drive that needed to be silenced). It didn't burn up on me, and it didn't have anywhere to conduct heat away.

 

[geofelt]

As long as the case has good overall air flow, nothing is needed. Hdds don't get very hot.

Agree.
Install speedfan and activate s.m.a.r.t hdd monitoring. It will tell you how hot your HDD is.

 

[masterclam]

on bubblewrap? may i ask why?

 

[randomizer]

Like I said, it needed to be silenced. It whined and the bubblewrap absorbed alot of the noise from that and vibration.

Edit: Typos galore.

 

[masterclam]

that makes sense, good idea

 

[randomizer]

I'd not recommend it on a new drive though, or a 10k RPM or faster drive. Without contact with metal, the heat will build up in the drive. If it has airflow it should be fine, otherwise make sure the drive can conduct heat away though direct contact.

 

[rwayne]

On another subject which do you think is the best brand?

Seagate or Western Digital? Or other?

 

[randomizer]

I think different people will tell you different things. I bought a Seagate, it's got a great 5 year warranty. But that warranty might as well be one year, because it's less than a year old and it spins up and down like a circular saw.

 

[cyber_jockey]

Agreed it all comes down to benchies and price. You cant judge hard drives like graphic cards you have to go do research if you looking for quality or performance which isn't a easy task when you limited by your budget which most of us are.

 

[kitsilencer]

A friend of mine was recommending SSD's. No moving parts = not much heat. But at the $ per GB level, it is SO not worth it.

 

[rwayne]

I know a lot of people who swear by Seagate but I have seen so many reviews of breakdowns happening to them. Very similar to what Randomizer is experiencing.

Then a few years back Seagate bought out Maxtor. I have never thought of Maxtor as a high quality product. I always thought of them as econo-hard drives.

Then Maxtor had that issue last year when a batch of their hard drives came preinstalled with virsuses which send key logger data back to China. Seagate did not make the drives but instead contracted out the labor for building them with some 3rd party manufacturing company in China. Seagate paid a big price for that mistake trying to save a few bucks.

I just don't know what to think of Seagate.

I have had pretty good luck with Western Digital.

 

[randomizer]

My drive still appears to perform fine, it just sounds totally dysfunctional. Could go all of a sudden I guess, most likely bad bearings.