SSD Mounting

[Peds013]

Hi guys,

I'm looking to buy an SSD, I'll decide which one at a later date. Due to a modded case, I've only got a few harddrive bays left over, which I've already filled with 3x 2Tb storage drives. I have seen cases where the SSDs are mounted on the back of the mobo trays. I wonder whether or not airflow is specially directed there to cool them or do they simply not run very hot?

I'd be looking to obviously install the OS and some of the main games I play/applications I use on them. I am basically asking if its possible to just 'bodge-mount' them as it were, to the back of the mobo tray providing there is space or do they need better airflow?

Thanks in advance!

 

[rolli59]

Because of lack of moving parts and very little wattage use they will not get very hot and do not need to be in direct airflow.

 

[RetiredChief]

Should be fine. When installed in a laptop bay there is Not near the airflow as in say a desktop. Will still have some airflow (which should be suffient) behind the MB tray, Just stay away from Hot spots ie directly behind the CPU.

roli59 - Agree in general, but Some SSDs have almost as much power dissipation as a standard 2 1/2 in HDD during read/write activity. My laptop, above the Drive is about the same temp with the SSD as when I had a HDD installed (forget which SSD). A thumbdrive is somewhat simular to an SSD and some of the Sata III thumbdrives get pretty warm, But then they are much smaller in Mass so the ability to dissipate heat is much lower. NAND chips can get pretty warm espeacially during a write cycle.

 

[rolli59]

This is what I meant when I talk about low wattage usage http://www.anandtech.com/show/4253/the-crucial-m4-micron-c400-ssd-review/11
And then again no moving parts is a big contributor as well.

 

[RetiredChief]

That is probably one of the reviews I had in mind.
Note that only at Idle is there a significate difference in power.
For Sequencial: Seagate XT HDD = 3.25, M4 = 3.0 (Only 0.25 Lower, AND Vertex III / Intel 510 Higher at 4.5
For 4K: Seagate XT HDD = 2.3, M4, vertex III and Intel 510 are higher

NOTE: The SSDs were 200+ Gig SSDs and I would assume that the 120 gig versions would be Lower, just how much I'm not sure. But as I said "Some" SSDs use about the same as a mechanical HDD.

 

[Energy96]

I think the big difference however is that HDD's create quite a bit of heat even when "idle" where as an SSD creates little to none. That means a lot for overall heat output of a device. Especially since unless you are running a heavily used server your HDD is in a nearly idle state most of the time as far as any meaningful level of read/write activity is concerned.

 

[rolli59]

That is probably one of the reviews I had in mind.
Note that only at Idle is there a significate difference in power.
For Sequencial: Seagate XT HDD = 3.25, M4 = 3.0 (Only 0.25 Lower, AND Vertex III / Intel 510 Higher at 4.5
For 4K: Seagate XT HDD = 2.3, M4, vertex III and Intel 510 are higher

NOTE: The SSDs were 200+ Gig SSDs and I would assume that the 120 gig versions would be Lower, just how much I'm not sure. But as I said "Some" SSDs use about the same as a mechanical HDD.

Just to make it clear I never stated that it uses less power than HDD's which as well is a low consuming part!

 

[Peds013]

Best answer selected by Peds013.

 

[Peds013]

Thanks alot for the comments and advice! I'll just stick it behind the mobo tray down by the bottom of the case as it shouldn't get too hot there.