Effective Passive Hard Drive Cooling

grandmaster00 · Post by **grandmaster00** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:07 pm

have been reading this article http://www.silentpcreview.com/article22-page1.html
from the homepage and am considering doing this mod myself. however i am finding it difficult to locate the aluminium u channel extrusion in the uk - does anyone have any ideas where i might b able to get hold of some??

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 2:34 pm

The most common application for this materiel that I know of is in window frames and screen doors, you can try checking out those kinds of places. I had better results mounting the Zalman Heatpipe HDD cooler to my suspended HDD than with the Aluminium channels, but it does cost quite a bit more.

grandmaster00 · Post by **grandmaster00** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 11:05 pm

well this is it - i am completely spent up and am looking for a cheap way of cooling my hdd's - this seems ideal. but like i say im finidng trouble tracking down the actual u channel

merlyn · Post by **merlyn** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:19 am

I got mine from B&Q. Much better results than the Zalman on my old Maxtor HDD.

grandmaster00 · Post by **grandmaster00** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:41 am

ive literally just got back from B&Q and they dont stock it - its not exactly the biggest B&Q in the world though - maybe ill try the B&Q warehouse thats n ot too far away. what precisely did you buy ??

merlyn · Post by **merlyn** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 8:34 am

it was a meter length of twin U channel Alu. I'll post some pics when i get home, didn't have time this morning.

Welcome to SPCR btw

edit: insert pics

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:32 am

Call me perverse, but I really dont see the point of 'aftermarket' heatsinks on a hdd.

Typical power usage (and hence max heat output) is circa 10W for 3.5" drives over quite a large surface area. This is hardly a major cooling challenge. If you have any airflow at all in the region of the drive it should cool itself just fine. If you have no airflow then it doesnt matter how much aluminium you bolt on - rather bolt it direct to the case and hope you get some cooling via convection!

merlyn · Post by **merlyn** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:43 am

of course bolting the thing to the case dissipates the heat, the whole point is to decouple the drive from the case to prevent vibration. when a 3.5" drive is decoupled, especially the maxtor i'v got, it will easily exceed it's 55°C maximum operating temperature. with the aluminium it only reaches 45°C under heavy load. And of course the decoupling reduces the noise of the drive dramatically.

ddrueding1 · Post by **ddrueding1** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:43 am

My drive is suspended directly in the main air channel of my system. A 120mm Nexus@5V is an inch away pulling in fresh air and blowing straight across the two long sides of the drive. Without the Zalman, it would pass 45C while defragging. Now it idles at 29C and maxes out at 33C.

Samsung 160GB SATA

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 4:02 pm

Besides, the pieces of aluminium sticking out the front and back are ideal places to tie some elastic too.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 3:21 pm

The above discussion and this thread have given me some ideas on hard drive mounting and cooling.

I'm thinking that, on my next build, I'll fashion some kind of heat sink for my drives, and suspend them with bungee cord (or something similar).

I like Bluefront's copper cage (in the linked thread above), but that's more work than I want to put in. The aluminum U-channel looks like a relatively quick and easy job, though.

So, what if copper U-channel was used? Can such a thing be purchased at a reasonable price? (BTW, I checked McMaster-Carr, and they have copper and aluminum U-channel, but it's quite expensive.)

Basically, the goal is to just increase the surface area of the HD with a material that is a good conductor of heat, right? Why not bolt (or even solder) several pieces of U-channel (preferably copper) together (in a "stacked" fashion, so that the extruded parts are all parallel), effectively creating a heat sink for either side of the HD?

Lame ASCII schematic:

Code: Select all

___                          ___
___]                        [___
___]  ____________________  [___
___] [_____hard_drive_____] [___
___]                        [___
___]                        [___

That is looking at the side of the hard drive where the power and cable plug-in.

Any thoughts? Seems like a pretty decent HD heat sink could be made for cheap.

scotty6435 · Post by **scotty6435** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 3:25 pm

Looks pretty good. Remember to finish off with a layer of AS5 between interfaces and to keep airflow up

afrost · Post by **afrost** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:25 pm

i think regular white heatsink compound would work fine....

timbo · Post by **timbo** » Fri Jan 28, 2005 4:46 pm

Here's my solution to keeping my cuda cooler by mounting a heat sink on top of the drive, like this;

I've not finished my case yet but the drive, as you can see, is at the top just below my cdrw. The PSU behind this has been closed off from the lower part of the case, the air flow comes up behind the face plate and also through some nice grills I've cut into the front past the hdd through the psu and out. Temp of my hdd is currently around 37degC when it's probably about 24degC inside.

Just sorting out the lower part of the case and I'll post a full write up.

Regards
Tim

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:15 pm

matt_garman wrote:Why not bolt (or even solder) several pieces of U-channel (preferably copper) together (in a "stacked" fashion, so that the extruded parts are all parallel), effectively creating a heat sink for either side of the HD?

That will be a good starting point for experiments with U-channels as HD heatsinks. In the linked article in the first post that's exactly what was done and it turned out to be the most effective solution when using U-channels for passive HD cooling.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:40 pm

Tephras wrote:That will be a good starting point for experiments with U-channels as HD heatsinks. In the linked article in the first post that's exactly what was done and it turned out to be the most effective solution when using U-channels for passive HD cooling.

Does anyone happen to know if/where copper U-channel is available (at a reasonable price of course)?

I think that would be another interesting experiment: copper vs aluminum homemade U-channel hard drive heat sinks.

- Matt

greeef · Post by **greeef** » Mon Jan 31, 2005 2:03 pm

I bought a load of rubbish old heatsinks from a fella a while ago - all roughly two inches square, heatsinks from voodoos and other systems he's broken up over the years.

I cut/tore a couple of these in half and just used superglue dabbed on the corners and some thermal compound to attach them. Seemed to work very well.

Now they're just suspended in front of a 120mm fan, works fine.

griff

GLO · Post by **GLO** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:11 pm

would there be any benefit to mount the HDD on their long sides so that they heat will rise to one long side of the hdd?

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:05 am

I think that would be another interesting experiment: copper vs aluminum homemade U-channel hard drive heat sinks.

Theoretically the copper U-channel heatsink should win, all other things being equal, as copper has a much higher thermal conductivity value than aluminium.

Thermal Conductivity League Table

Kythe · Post by **Kythe** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 7:17 am

jaganath wrote:
I think that would be another interesting experiment: copper vs aluminum homemade U-channel hard drive heat sinks.
Theoretically the copper U-channel heatsink should win, all other things being equal, as copper has a much higher thermal conductivity value than aluminium.

Thermal Conductivity League Table

This is true. But I'd bet you'll get more mileage out of using thermal compound between drives and potential heatsinks, than switching from aluminum to copper.

For that matter, heatsinks attached to the bottom of the drive should help, too. An aluminum plate screwed to the bottom, with a roughly 2"x2"x.1" extra piece of flat aluminum to make contact with the spindle motor area using thermal grease should be a good start. Add some low-profile heatsinks to that plate with thermal epoxy, and I would think the drive should stay rather cool