I've seen various hardware that's made to cool a hard drive, even water cooling solutions to cool the drives. Is this really neccessary? I wouldn't stuff a drive somewhere without at least a fan over it, but it seems that anything more than this would be overkill.
Hard drive coolers: Are they a waste?
- Thread starter RaiderJ
- Start date
please do a search next time
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=1016021&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=37&threadid=1016021&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=
I've got a barracuda V... its doesn't output much heat to begin with, plus its sitting in front of 2 NMB intakes. Its cool to the touch.
I wouldn't use a HD cooler unless I had a HD that put out a serious amount of heat. Watercooling a HD seems ridiculous. Just position HD's in the case where they get good airflow.
I wouldn't use a HD cooler unless I had a HD that put out a serious amount of heat. Watercooling a HD seems ridiculous. Just position HD's in the case where they get good airflow.
After 3 dead IBM 60GXPs in 7 months I woun't run a HD without one. This last 60GXP has ran for 6 months with a fan. These are bad examples as they are extremely susceptible to heat.
Brian
Brian
Demon-Xanth
Lifer
- Feb 15, 2000
- 20,551
- 2
- 81
Most consumer level HDs don't need them. Faster SCSI drives on the otherhand, they need them. I've almost been burned on a brick of SCSI Baracudas.
really? i have an hitachi 120gxp and i heard hitachi hard disks use IBM's technology. so it's also not reliable?
IBM has supposedly gotten better recently. The 60GXP and 75GXP were a joke though. IBM has class action law suits about them because they died so quickly and they knew there was a problem.
Brian
You should stop being a ................
Anyways, RaiderJ should have looked before he posted. The conclusion from the other thread was that basically, they don't help that much, but to some people, they can't take any chances.
A *LONG* time ago, about when I joined anandtech, there was a very similar debate to this. Someone found the results from a study done over at ibm.com about this subject. The conclusion was that hard drive failure rate vs. temperature was an EXPONENTIAL, not linear, relationship; with the curve flattening out at I believe 45-55 degree farenheight. I cannot for the life of me dig up that link, but I assume someone around here probably has it archived.
-Chu
-Chu
I would be interested in seeing this if anyone can find it. It seems a few years back people may have actually gave real evidence rather then just their opinions. Not that opinions are bad or unwanted, but on topics like these they just aren't good enough.
Brian
Brian
Thump553
Lifer
- Jun 2, 2000
- 12,839
- 2,625
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I use them. I initially put them in because my system was poorly set up and the hard drives were packed together and getting pretty warm. Relocating the HDs probably was enough to solve my problem, but I left the coolers on. They make next to no noise and couldn't hurt. They are also pretty cheap.
I absolutely hate HD crashes.
I absolutely hate HD crashes.
I have a little bit of experience with HDD's and cooling... Out of the 10 or so HDD's I have in the office right now, you don't really need a cooler if you run single drive config..
With raid, I think it's better to have coolers. I striped a raid 0+1 on 2 40gb hard drives just for the hell of it, and it seems that the HDD's run at full throttle 100% of the time, and it made my case around the hard drives too hot to touch... So I touched the 2 raided hard drives and they almost burned my hands... A few months later, one hard drive crashed.
In conclusion, I think if the hard drive is not too hot to touch, you don't need a cooler... Sounds really stupid, but it's even more dumb to put a fan on a hdd that doens't need it...
With raid, I think it's better to have coolers. I striped a raid 0+1 on 2 40gb hard drives just for the hell of it, and it seems that the HDD's run at full throttle 100% of the time, and it made my case around the hard drives too hot to touch... So I touched the 2 raided hard drives and they almost burned my hands... A few months later, one hard drive crashed.
In conclusion, I think if the hard drive is not too hot to touch, you don't need a cooler... Sounds really stupid, but it's even more dumb to put a fan on a hdd that doens't need it...
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
I bought The Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler used on the forums awhile back cheap (it's too expensive new, over $16 usually). I just use the heatsink portion of it on my main hard drive - it reports a temp of 35C average, as high as 37C in the past hour. I don't have data from before the heatsink went on unfortunately.
My secondary system has 2 7200 rpm drives in RAID; they were originally mounted right next to each other in the 3.5" bays, and they got really hot, like well over 45C I bet. I moved them to the 5.25" bays, and put an 80mm fan in the front bay faceplates to keep them cool. I can't read the temps because they're through a RAID controller, and I don't know if they have thermal monitors, but they stay warm now - not sizzlingly hot.
My secondary system has 2 7200 rpm drives in RAID; they were originally mounted right next to each other in the 3.5" bays, and they got really hot, like well over 45C I bet. I moved them to the 5.25" bays, and put an 80mm fan in the front bay faceplates to keep them cool. I can't read the temps because they're through a RAID controller, and I don't know if they have thermal monitors, but they stay warm now - not sizzlingly hot.
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