Any hard drive coolers that actually work?

[Kaido]

I'm planning on putting my 500gb IDE Seagate in a MicroATX case. I have a spare 5.25" drive bay and I'd like to snag a good 3.5" hard drive cooler to put in into to reduce noise and help with cooling. Do any of them actually work or are they all junk?

 

[alzan]

I've had good success just by putting a fan in the case that blows directly over the HDD's. They're SCSI 10K rpm, and I've never seen them go over 25C while operating.

As far as the coolers, I believe Antec has a model with three small fans behind a 5.25" faceplate that works reasonably well (you might have to put 5.25" expansion rails on your drive and put in an open external bay). There's also a model, either Zalman or Coolermaster, that is an HDD caddy made of heatpipes that pull the heat away from the drive (I'm pretty sure that takes a 5.25" bay also).

alzan

 

[Sforsyth]

The one I have works good but it is a no name brand it acts like a big heatsink that wraps around the drive with to small fans that blow on it.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: alzan
I've had good success just by putting a fan in the case that blows directly over the HDD's. They're SCSI 10K rpm, and I've never seen them go over 25C while operating.

this is the way i do my 10 and 15k hdds, with 7.2k i dont really worry about it as long as they are somehow attaced to the case via metal so the the heat can dissipate. if you need to use those plastic rails i would do something passive since th plastic will insulate them and keep the heat in.