Is my unorthodox "mounting" job safe?

[anthonysw1]

After finding out that I could add a Serial ATA hard drive to a PC that already had two IDE drives, I ordered (from Newegg) a new Samsung Serial ATA drive even though I didn't have any 3.25" bays in my case that weren't already being used. I figured I would use a bracket or something to mount the drive in one of the CD-ROM sized bays (5.25").

Besides the fact that these brackets are apparently kind of rare (Newegg doesn't even carry one), I discovered that I wouldn't even be able to use one anyway, because in my computer's case, optical drives are mounted by using those "rails" where you screw the rails to both sides of the drive, and then slide the drive into place via slots on either side of the bay.

The way I ended up mounting the drive was that I took some of the bubble wrap from the packing box, wrapped it around the drive and then slid the whole thing into the 5.25" bay. It fits rather snugly and I was pleased with my elegant solution until an engineer friend of mine said he was concerned that the drive would overheat.

But is there really a chance that heat would damage the drive like he's saying? The bubble wrap only goes around the middle of the drive; the heat can still dissipate off the exposed ends. Isn't that enough?

 

[Suups]

If it's a 7200 RPM drive, gut feeling is probably not.

If you like try running it for a few minutes (not long though!) and touch the exposed metal on the end - I bet you'll find it's uncomfortably warm.

 

[akira34]

In my opinion, using bubble-wrap like that is just plain DUMB. The drive will NOT be able to get rid of the heat developed while it's in use and it will fail a LOT faster than if you mounted it properly. You CAN get the mounting bracket items. Most often you find them with retail packaged hard drives. You should be able to find them at your local compusa as well. As for the drive rails for the optical drives, just mount those to the drive.

Another option would be to get a hard drive cooler item. Typically, those are made to mount in 5.25" bays and will hold your drive properly while keeping it cooler.

The bubble-wrap is worse than ghetto...

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: akira34
In my opinion, using bubble-wrap like that is just plain DUMB. The drive will NOT be able to get rid of the heat developed while it's in use and it will fail a LOT faster than if you mounted it properly. You CAN get the mounting bracket items. Most often you find them with retail packaged hard drives. You should be able to find them at your local compusa as well. As for the drive rails for the optical drives, just mount those to the drive.

Another option would be to get a hard drive cooler item. Typically, those are made to mount in 5.25" bays and will hold your drive properly while keeping it cooler.

The bubble-wrap is worse than ghetto...

lol, worse than ghetto... thats pretty bad!

I have to agree with everyone else here, remove the bubble wrap as soon as possible. I would just leave the drive resting on the bottom of the bay until you get some sort of cooler/bracket solution. I have even set the drive on it's side on the bottom of a case before while waiting for a mount and that would probably even be better than bubble wrap.

-spike

 

[MedicBob]

LOL. I wouldn't run it for very long like that. Heat would be a big killer but think of this... You accidently bump your case causing the HDD to fall into the case onto the MB shorting everything out, etc, etc. Your HDD should have had the brackets you needed if you bought retail. Ask a few geek friends, they should have some.

 

[Dough1397]

use the bungee cord suspension method... ;;less noise and vibrations....

unless of course you like vibrations... lol

 

[Rexxenexx]

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/directron/mis-kit-hd.html

And screw the rails to the bracket. I have four HD's on my server setup like this.

 

[Zepper]

No one could MAKE me admit to doing something like that... :roll: Get a proper bracket - your rails will be able to mount to most of the brackets. cyberguys.com et al. has them.

.bh.

:moon:

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Rexxenexx
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/directron/mis-kit-hd.html

And screw the rails to the bracket. I have four HD's on my server setup like this.

Or post in the FS/T forum that you need some 3.5" HDD -> 5.25" bay adapters. I'm sure someone can mail you a pair by first class mail, for less than Directron will charge for their minimum order, plus Priority Mail shipping.

Bubble wrap......no. No good.

 

[phlashphire]

You could also try this for a quick fix. http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/hddnoise Safer than the insulation of bubble wrap.

 

[akira34]

And when the rubber bands get old and brittle (accelerated by the heat inside the case) you'll get the lovely THUMP sound as it hits bottom and possibly commits suicide. That idea is almost as bad as the bubble-wrap one...

Seriously, where do you guys come up with such horrid ideas?? Is it too much ganja (or too little)?? Seriously, I've seen the hardware that will let you mount a hard drive into the optical drive bay PROPERLY at compusa recently. We're NOT talking a lot of money here (under $10) and it WILL mount the drive securely. You should be able to mount the drive rails to that as well to get the drive in. Of course, if you had a better case, that didn't use the cheesy drive rails, it would make things a lot easier.

Hell for under $20 (shipped) you can get something like this...

 

[Insomniak]

UH...I would advise AGAINST this...the first time that case gets jostled, you're going to have some locked heads...cooling issues also worry me greatly...

 

[Xitar]

I'll send your HD some rails for free. It's like animal cruelty or neglect for hardware. I just can't sit by and watch this happen.

How come you can afford a new HD, but not $3 rails?

If you want them and the shipping is reasonable let me know.
shipping from WA.

 

[akira34]

I'm 99.999% sure that if the person had purchased a standard retail version of the drive, it would have come with the drive rails. The person saved a few dollars by going OEM/bulk and would spend the savings in getting something to properly mount the drive.

 

[Dough1397]

bungeee cord would break... i doubt it...

 

[akira34]

That was a simple rubber band in the link...

Right from that site that was linked to... "How I attached the rubber bands to the side"

Rubber bands have NO place inside of computer cases. You have no idea how many I've found inside cases where people have used them to secure ribbons and/or cables and such. We're not talking about years down the road either, often just a few (3-6) months later the bands snap and are 100% useless.

Go ahead, use some rubber bands to hold your drives in place. Just don't come crying when they snap, the drives fall, your heads crash into the drive platters and you lose all your data. Of course, unless you have the few thousand to spend on data recovery services. If that's the case, then use just a fraction of that to get a case that will hold the damned drives securely.

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: Dough1397
bungeee cord would break... i doubt it...

Akira was referring to the rubber bands. Bungee cords are awesome. Sorbothane if you want to lay the drive on something. Do not use bubble wrap. Do not use rubber bands. Do make sure your HDD is not to warm to the touch.

 

[akira34]

Thank you... I might not trust bungie cords, since I prefer to have my drives mounted securely, but I don't have enough experience/information with/on them to say if the heat inside a computer will degrade them fast or not. Personally, I'm of the mind set that it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your data. Especially when it's so bloody easy to securely mount them in any case that's worth a damn. I've never had a mid-tower/ATX case that didn't hold at least four hard drives easily. My current case can hold six drives in the bays designed for doing such. I could install additional drives into the 5.25" bays IF I needed to, but I don't. Next time I need a case that will need to hold more drives, I'll get the V2100...

 

[Geomagick]

There's a good reason why a modern HD is mounted to a metal case, heat. Bubble wrap and to a certain extent floating in free air with a bungee cord means the drive will get even hotter. Then again you could use it to keep coffee warm.

 

[tminter]

Why not attach a parachute to the HDD in case it falls!

 

[beatle]

Come on guys, I've seen worse. Yeah, it was only temporary until I migrated everything to my new drive.

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: George Powell
There's a good reason why a modern HD is mounted to a metal case, heat. Bubble wrap and to a certain extent floating in free air with a bungee cord means the drive will get even hotter. Then again you could use it to keep coffee warm.

Suspending my raptor dropped its temperature by 15C as compared to mounting it properly in its harddrive cage. I have the superlanboy where the harddrives are mounted antiparallel with the base of the case. With this setup and the use of grommetts, there is absolutely no heat conduction. Only convection and radiation. With the removal of the hdd cage, and suspending the harddrive, the amount of surface area exposed to the cooling of the front 120mm fan was increased by more than 100%.

Beetle: Nothing wrong with ghetto style. Thats perhaps the easiest, best way to test a harddrive

 

[fenrir]

Originally posted by: Tiamat

Originally posted by: George Powell
There's a good reason why a modern HD is mounted to a metal case, heat. Bubble wrap and to a certain extent floating in free air with a bungee cord means the drive will get even hotter. Then again you could use it to keep coffee warm.

Suspending my raptor dropped its temperature by 15C as compared to mounting it properly in its harddrive cage. I have the superlanboy where the harddrives are mounted antiparallel with the base of the case. With this setup and the use of grommetts, there is absolutely no heat conduction. Only convection and radiation. With the removal of the hdd cage, and suspending the harddrive, the amount of surface area exposed to the cooling of the front 120mm fan was increased by more than 100%.

Beetle: Nothing wrong with ghetto style. Thats perhaps the easiest, best way to test a harddrive

Antiparallel??????? You wouldn't happen to mean vertically would you?

Sorry, but I have to give you a hard time for that.

Did you mount it so the top side of the drive is facing the fan?

Matt

 

[akira34]

Originally posted by: fenrir

Originally posted by: Tiamat

Originally posted by: George Powell
There's a good reason why a modern HD is mounted to a metal case, heat. Bubble wrap and to a certain extent floating in free air with a bungee cord means the drive will get even hotter. Then again you could use it to keep coffee warm.

Suspending my raptor dropped its temperature by 15C as compared to mounting it properly in its harddrive cage. I have the superlanboy where the harddrives are mounted antiparallel with the base of the case. With this setup and the use of grommetts, there is absolutely no heat conduction. Only convection and radiation. With the removal of the hdd cage, and suspending the harddrive, the amount of surface area exposed to the cooling of the front 120mm fan was increased by more than 100%.

Beetle: Nothing wrong with ghetto style. Thats perhaps the easiest, best way to test a harddrive

Antiparallel??????? You wouldn't happen to mean vertically would you?

Sorry, but I have to give you a hard time for that.

Did you mount it so the top side of the drive is facing the fan?

Matt

I think he's talking about perpendicular to the 'base of the case'... Also known as 'sidesaddle' mounting...

 

[Mucker]

DO NOT USE BUBBLEWRAP!!!!!! This will work much, much better: http://www.dow.com/greatstuff/pro/gaps.htm

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