How do you cool your hd?

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 3:56 am

Hi, im looking into hard drive cooling solutions atm, my samsung hd as some of you may know died not long ago which may have indirectly been associated with heat issues. I had an 80mm fan at 5v blowing over it but that obviously wasnt enough cooling it to only 48ish deg C which im informed isnt cool enough for a samsung spinpoint. (the HD is elastically suspended in the 5 1/2" bay)

The only thing is, since this is silentpcreview.com i dont want the noise of a 7v 80mm fan but i still want effective cooling, is the zalman heatpipe HD cooler worth the money? Its design looks... interesting, will that be adequate with a 5v fan blowing over it???

Seal

chylld · Post by **chylld** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 4:32 am

Your previous setup would have been more than adequate if you had taken 1 or 2 of the 5 1/4" drive bay panels off.

I run a seagate 7200.7 in the bqe's std hdd racks and it never goes above 40 degrees C - I taped down paper over >90% of the holes except for the ones in front of the HDD, thus forcing intake air to come across the hdd.

I think you don't have room to do that since you have your WC setup there, so I think the best solution for you would be to use a fan like u did last time, along with a zalman heatpipe hd cooler (or novibes) and either remove the 5 1/4" drive bay panels or replace them with a grill of some sort.

Lifecycle · Post by **Lifecycle** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 5:20 am

I have a Barracuda IV in a Zalman heatpipe cooler mounted in a 5.25 bay with no direct airflow.

In terms of heat, it is warm-hot to the touch. Not so hot that you can't keep your fingers on it, though. In my mind, this is a non-issue as no HDD I know of is supposed to be actively cooled anyway (unlike say a CPU or graphics card). Maybe I'll change my tune if the drive breaks...

Zalman cooler is good, I had a slightly problem with the fit as mine seems to be a little too narrow and so part of the bottom of one side isn't totally flush with the HDD. The cooler and heatpipes still get warm though, so I presume it's doing its job. My guess is that even with a small bit of airflow, you would probably get a much cooler drive.

Seek noise is definitely reduced. I can still heat the HDD faintly but for me, it's by no means intrusive and much less noticable that without it - YMMV. I've not suspended my HDD but from what I read here, it's probably not quite as quiet a suspended drive.

Overall, I would say it's good, rather than great. Some kind of 80mm-92mm fan mount on the top or bottom of it would allow the possibility of 5v active cooling and greatly drop the temperature, but as I said, I've not had any problems so far with HDD temps. FWIW I've only had the heatpipe just over a month, though.

HTH

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:33 am

What are your case temps? If they're down it the 30's I still can't imagine why your drive would get as hot as it did unless it was defective. One of my systems is running a Barracuda IV in one of the 5.25" bays with a 5V 80mm L1A blowing on it from below. This drive stays around 1-2°C above the case temp at all times even though it is only being cooled with air from inside the case. Your situation should have been very similar to mine, that's why I'm suspicious of your original drive.

If I was you I'd wait until I got my replacement drive and install it exactly the same way as your first drive was and see what it's temps are. I'd bet they'll be OK, but if they're not then you can get a little more hard-core with your cooling method.

josephclemente · Post by **josephclemente** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 11:18 am

Are these Samsung Spinpoints known to run incredibly hot?

Not so long ago I replaced a one-year-old Maxtor 7200RPM 80GB PATA drive with a Maxtor 7200RPM 80GB SATA drive. The SATA drive ran 10C hotter, and I could verify it was much hotter to the touch. The short warranty time for the new drive bothered me as well for such a hot-running drive, so I was thinking about returning it. Eventually I had to return it because it failed.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 11:39 am

josephclemente wrote:Are these Samsung Spinpoints known to run incredibly hot?

Theyre known for running incredubly cool usually... around 30-35's from reading about other ppls, although the problem comes when mine runs at 48deg c, thats usually *acceptable* for normal hds but not for cooler running spinpoints.

Ralf, my case temps were a toasty 30 deg c which may have been why. You got a pic of your cooling setup ralf? Ive removed the metal grills over the 5 1/2" bays, that may help.

Lifecycle, can u find out the temp that yours runs at? download DTemp here http://private.peterlink.ru/tochinov/download.html its great program.

Im going to have 3 hds there soon (5 1/2" bays)and i dont think elastically suspending them will become very efficient anymore so i might put the hds in their own zalman hs cooler.

Post by **MikeC** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 12:12 pm

Just to toss out a couple more numbers...

I have 2 'cuda IV 40G which are known to run hot on an up/down elastic suspension at the bottom front of my case. Here are the temps:

P4-2.4 -- 50C (w/Thermalright SLK900 + 6V Panaflo 80L)
"case" (from mobo) -- 40C
top 'cuda -- 41C
bottom 'cuda -- 35C

No front fan, only Panaflo 80L exhaust fan at 6V and PSU Panaflo 80L at 6V.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 12:26 pm

Seal wrote: Ralf, my case temps were a toasty 30 deg c which may have been why. You got a pic of your cooling setup ralf? Ive removed the metal grills over the 5 1/2" bays, that may help.

"toasty" 30 deg c?

That's not toasty at all, that's perfectly normal and I can see no reason that your drive should be running 18°C hotter than your case temps. that just reinforces my thinking that your drive was defective.

Pics of my case are in this thread except that the HDD has been movered up into the 5.25" bay. Here's a pic of that:

That's an 80mm 5V L1A blowing up onto the drive. It's mounted on 4 of those EAR fan isolators acting as legs to keep the fan raised off the bottom on the drive bay. I have no source of cool outside air to that drive, it's cooled with "case temp" air and runs 1-2°C warmer than the case temp. Right this instant the case temp in this rig is 30°C and the HDD temp is 31°C.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 3:36 pm

hmmm neat setup, im gonna pick up a few panaflos soon, they look like very well made fans.

Zyzzyx · Post by **Zyzzyx** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 6:33 pm

I've got a Cuda IV suspended at the bottom of the case. One Panaflo at 5v blowing intake air over it. Ambient ~23C, case 27C, drive 33C.

MGP · Post by **MGP** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:51 pm

Of course, you could always get a case based around the venerable Antec/Chieftec "Dragon" design that includes spots for two 80mm fans to cool off the hard drive bays (though, in my case, I really don't see a need for extra HD cooling besides installing the drive alone in a bay cage).

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:12 am

My Spinpoint runs at between 34-40C. It's suspended in a NoVibes in a 5.25" bay, sandwiched between a CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives, no active cooling of the drive itself.

Case temp typically maxes out around 31-34C after a few hours of heavy load.

I've just bought 3x40mm Adda fans, I'm going to try modding a front panel blanking plate to see if I can't get some extra air flowing over the drive, without incurring lots of extra noise. I don't have great hope, but it'll keep me off the streets over Christmas

echoes · Post by **echoes** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 10:54 am

In my Sonata, I have a 160 GB Maxtor, 80 GB WD, and 18 GB Maxtor Atlas 10k III. I'm sure that's disgustingly loud by SPCR standards, but it's quiet enough for me.

Anyways, I have a 120 mm Panaflo mounted on the front fan mount, running off the Antec PSU fan only connector. According to Speedfan, my case is at 29 C and the Maxtor 160 GB (the only HD I have with a temp. sensor) constantly fluctuates between 25 and 29 C. The hard drives get room temperature air though, and on my motherboard, the case temp. sensor is near where air exhausts from the CPU HSF.

If I didn't use a SCSI drive I wouldn't bother with active cooling.

Sam Williams · Post by **Sam Williams** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 11:15 am

I thought I'd post my experience because I just changed my HDD cooling arrangements this afternoon...

I have just one HDD: a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 (120 GB - 6Y120L0), elastic-suspended in standard flat orientation within my 5.25" cage. Before today, it was sitting in virtually static air - the only airflow in the case is a ducted room-to-CPU fan and the PSU's exhaust. The drive operated at 50-54C; that's just within spec but not exactly comfortable.

Today, I installed a 24vM1A, mounted on the floor of the drive cage, blowing case-temperature air upwards (rather like Ralf's setup pictured above). The fan is ~30mm from the bottom surface of the drive. The temperatures are now 28-31C - in other words, ~22C cooler than before. Case and CPU temps also appear to be slightly down.

I can't discern any increase in noise from my normal sitting position; the new fan is audible with the case off when I listen for it, but otherwise it's inaudible. I'm really pleased, and surprised, at how easy it was to cool the drive this much.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 11:53 am

Hmmm has anyone had any experience with those cheap hard drive coolers like this one:

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/casecooler/ ... drivc.html

Are these anygood? I might try one of these on 5 or 7v which should make it quiet. There are many variations of these with single larger fans etc..

Sam Williams · Post by **Sam Williams** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:07 pm

I'd be concerned that the device would transmit the fans' vibrations to the hard drive.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 12:21 pm

Seal wrote:Hmmm has anyone had any experience with those cheap hard drive coolers like this one:

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/casecooler/ ... drivc.html

Are these anygood? I might try one of these on 5 or 7v which should make it quiet. There are many variations of these with single larger fans etc..

Before I made my homemade version I bought a couple different variations of that type of cooler to see how they'd work running undervolted. They were still noisy at 7V and passable at 5V but they didn't blow enough air to cool the drive at 5V.

wussboy · Post by **wussboy** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 6:01 pm

I blocked off every hole in the front of my BQE case except for the 120mm fan intake (there is no fan there) and built at little tunnel of cardboard to force all incoming air over the harddrive. The stock 120mm fan at the back blowing out and the 120mm of my ST400 keep my CudaV at 33C according to DTemp. Works damn slick.

tay · Post by **tay** » Fri Dec 19, 2003 8:06 pm

i have an ibm deathstar 60 gb 7200 rpm running @ 38C in a 30C case. I have thermal pasted the sides of the drive and attached PART of a 3.5 to 5.25 bay adapter to it. The bay adapter acts like a heatsink and does get warm to the touch. If you can afford to put it on a foam pad, and attach heat sinks to the sides you should be golden. Drive is sitting on a foam pad with a 7V sleeve bearing fan blowing on it. Works perfectly. The HD bay coolers are all NOISY (considering how noisy my system is and im saying that...) and vibrate tons.

hth