What do you think about HDD cooling?

[LinuxGURU]

What do you guys think about HDD fans, heatsinks, and those modules that fit into one of your 5.25 drive bays and holds your HDD?

[Ben721]

Im gonna get a hdd cooler. I'll let you know how it goes.

[LinuxGURU]

Thanks a lot man.

[lazerin]

I'm all for cooling your drives but I've never used a drive cooler.
Here's what I do. I have a dvd and burner on the top to bays then i have two free bays below them followed by two hdds and a floppy. In the two free bays, I have installed two 80mm fans as exhausts. They sit side by side and is a perfect fit. You can install just one fan if you wish and cut the drive covers up to make a nice grill.
Anyway, after doing this mod, I found that both my hdd temps fell from about 45°C to about 29°C max. I'd say this is the same for my dvd and cdrw but they don't have sensors on them.

[Crash893]

ive never found it nessacary

[Intrepid]

In my Lian-Li the hard drive is mounted verticly on thet bottom of the case so the 2 input fans blow right past its sides, cooling it prety efficiantly, though a good drive should nto need cooling... it's a hard drive for cryin out loud! but my 60GB IBM did overheat every now n then till it died, Spyder says a virus illed iti say it was the heat, prolly was a bit of both, and well I didn't treat my comp to wel lwhen it was in my Antec case. Now thing's are diferent, my Maxator has metal plates on both sides protecting it. And the 2 80mm Panaflow intakes blowing air across both sides. Also, heres a hint use soem electrical tape and round your cables for better airflow.

[MajinSSJVegetto]

I wouldn't waste the time.

Unless you are water cooling.
If you are, you don't have as many fans in your case. The heat from the HDDs will heat up everything else.

[TSA]

After my IBM 60GXP died on me, I've been cooling my new seagate with a Coolermaster Harddrive cooler.

I can't say it's absolutely necessary, but I can say for sure that it doesn't hurt, and any of your computer components can always benefit from cooling. Not to mention it will lengthen its life.

[CoolLion]

The 60+ HDs seem to get very hot without cooling and start clickin loud from the recallibration. IBMs die a lot from that. I did the coolermaster hd coolers first but i found them to be a pain. The tiny fan does not do much but does make a lot of noise. The filters need cleaning a lot or the closed drive cooler becomes a drive toaster. Better just place 1 big fan in front.

[strokeside]

Just so I know, which side of the HDD gets thehottest / needs the cooling most?
The side with the circuitry or the side that is all metal?
Sorry for the high-jacking GURU/

[Ben721]

Im gonna need to cool my hdd cause my system temp gets to 35.

[stool]

Not all drives need cooling, but I have a 10k SCSI that definitely needs it. The top is almost too hot to touch. Personally, anything that reduces heat in your system and may help extend the life of your components is a plus.

[Starfoxer]

i think it's a good 5$ investment. most of us are running in high
PCI freqs so why not be safe, rather than sorry :p

[danorthface]

My maxtor 80 gig drive got way too hot during the last heat wave, and it started to click at starup and shutdown. So i got my brother's under mount hard drive cooler with 2 40 mm fans and it kept it a lot cooler. But those fans are a piece of crap. One of them started rattling, so i remove that one and only used one of the fans. About a week later the other fan started making noise as well. So now i have a 80mm fan right under my hd in a 5.25 bay, secured with rubber bands =)

[danorthface]

oh yeah, my hd temps max at 43 C. I was probably getting 60 C plus before installing the fans! No wonder it was malfunctioning. To who ever asked the question, it seems that the large chip under the hard drive gets the hottest..

[GTA]

My 2 HDD's are watercooled with a simple plate and pipe design. Worth it in my opinion, due to the fact that I've been able to completly enclose the drives in padding to make them much more silent.

After eliminating all the fans from my case, the HDD's are the next loudest thing, you've got to do something about them. And you can't pad them ulnless you watercool them first.

basically, if you've got any airflow in your case at all, then you don't need anything extra.

[ZeroAquaduct]

I think it's a good investment. For some reason my Maxtor D740X 60GB went up to 50C during hot days (20C above ambient), and according to the Maxtor site, the drive should run between 5C to 55C. So that was pretty close to the suggested temperature.

I got myself an Ultimate HD Cooler and my HD temperature is 37C (10C above ambient). And after modding my case to have an 80mm fan blowing across my HD, I get 30C now (5C above ambient). This will probably give more life to my HD, and it's not too bad for a $13 USD investment.

I got these temperatures using MBM5, so it's not 100% accurate. ;)

[raventy]

Yes I have to agree with cooling your hd's. Ive seen a few hds from other pep's die cause of heat death, and my maxtor 80GB is running pretty damn hot, and when I add my 40GB IBM drive right below it in my new wc case Itll probely get realy hot so ill probely be wcin mine. Hey does anyone know how much ur cpu temp will rise when adding a hd cooler? I mean ill be having CPU, GPU, MB, & HD cooling in my loop.

[Jimingle10]

i just bought a antec hd cooler, its pretty simple and for 8 bucks...big deal...3 little antec fans, no thermal sensor on hd but i would imagine its dropped a bit, not really necessary. I really only did it because my blowhole affects my first 5.25" bay and it looked dumb with a plastic cover. Hehe :)