quick question about HDD coolers ...

[purbeast0]

well i have a quick question about these. i have 2 of them in my computer. they are the kind that put a metal heatsink type thing all around the HD and they have 2 little fans on the cooler as well, that blow air out of the front of my case, and take up one of the 5.25 bays. my questoin is this....

if i take the power out of the fans (because i rooted these fans to the loud noise of my computer and i want it quieter), will it make my HDD's even hotter because the metal heat sink type thing is still around it with no fan?

 

[Lord Evermore]

It should not make it any hotter. The heatsinks likely have more surface area exposed than the drives themselves, so even passively using them should provide cooling. And the metal will absorb the heat better than air of course.

I'm not sure those things are really all that helpful or necessary though. Do you have drives that provide temperature monitoring? Some of the newer drives have a thermistor that can be read by various system tools (AIDA32 I believe is one that does). That would tell you right away what's happening.

Don't forget, you can also modify the fan wiring so that they run at a lower voltage (assuming they aren't already at 5V).

 

[SludgeFactory]

Never used the HD coolers, but what I read about them is what you experienced -- the little fans are noisemakers. If eliminating noise is your thing, a major step is getting rid of as many high-revving 40mm and 60mm fans as you can. More at silentpcreview.com about that.

If the heat sink is well designed, fits very snugly and has fins, then it could help. If it fits poorly, the conductive heat transfer it provides is probably not very good, and it could potentially be blocking airflow that might otherwise be helping out. In the overall scheme of things it probably doesn't matter much either way, the drive temps are not that high above ambient (unlike a CPU). If you're bored you could try it with and without the heat sink, and use the SMART monitoring of the drive to determine its temps.

I've got my drives positioned right behind a single 120mm fan running about as slow as I could get it on a speed control, I'm very satisfied with the cooling and noise levels from that setup.

 

[Iron Woode]

I have an 80mm fan cooling my harddrive, but my Antec case is designed for that. My hdd temp is 19C right now.

 

[purbeast0]

thanks for the replies. i have had these things for about 4 years now and i purchased them when my HD was running very slowly which I heard could have been from it getting too hot. but now that i defrag every night for a few hours while i'm sleeping it runs faster than ever. since i had them i just continued to use them. i think i will unplug the fans when i get home tonight and see how much quieter it gets.

i jsut don't feel like being bothered and dismounting them and what not because i don't have the panels to fill in the 5.25 slots they take up .