Which harddrive cooler?

I've seem 1,2,and 3 fan harddrive coolers. Which ones are better? Which ones do you guys use. I'm assuming that a 7200rpm hdd SHOULD have one of these?

No. Harddrive coolers are pretty much unnecessary. 7200rpm ATA drives really dont get all that hot, and they also have a hellahigh heat tolerance comparied to most components. Maybe if you had a stack of SCSI 15krpm U160 drives, you might consider them, but don't waste your bucks just for a ATA drive or two.

ok, thanks

Try this, turn your pc on and leave it on for a couple hours, then feel the hdd, if its really hot it cant hurt to use something like this

If its only tepid dont bother.

Personally I use one even though both my drives(wd80 8meg) are fairly cool running, the one drive I cool is in an odd location and I felt it could use a little breeze

mine was almost buring me to the touch so i got a $15 one with 2 small fans that use a 5.25" bay and suck it in from there, now its ice cool and i'm sure its life will be extended, if not it just looks cool~RCTG

As long as you have good air circulation in the case then it's probably not needed. I have 2 hard drives both next to each other so I use an 80 mm fan in front and a vantec dual hd cooler on the main drive. The only drawback that I can think of is dust collects on the hard drive. I clean my case once a month so to me it's no problem.

If at all it could be for piece of mind, and it looks pretty darn cool, anyways check out SVC (Link) and you can pick up a HD cooler for 2.99, also you can pick up the slk-800 for 33.99

Alot of cheap individual fans too, 60mm 40 cfm for 2.99, 80mm 34cfm 2.99, thats where I buy most of my fans and cooling accessories.

When you check to see if the drive is hot, don't just check the top of the drive, check the controller chip of the harddrive as well.

I currently have a maxtor dx740 60gig hard drive. I have noticed that the hard drive temps were high when using smartfan to monitor my cpu temps. The controller chip on the underside of the drive was fairly hot to the touch. So I went down to compusa and looked around for some components. I am pleasently surprised at the new cooling solutions and cases that they now carry. They were all out of that two fan hard drive cooler that was posted above. They did have a basic chipset cooler (as on northbridge or vantecs copper chipset coolers) for $10. It came with 2 small different sized heatsinks, thermal grease, fan, and three pieces of adhesive tape. To attach it to my controller chip i had to remove the plastic guard that covered most of the hard drives underside. All that was needed was to unscrew a few small screws. I then used the adhesive tape to attach a heatsink and fan (nice ghetto mod). I don't have the exact numbers but this cooled my hard drive significantly.
Some concerns I had with the other solutions are price, effectiveness, and longevity. The cooler with two fans that was posted earlier seems good because alot of air can directly cool the hard drive. A downside of this is if the fans die and early death and you have to buy another one. Other coolers such as the vantec hardcanos (?) are expensive and have dinky little fans in front. I feel that chipset coolers are a nice and cheap way to protect your hard drive that has all those important videos on it

I personally don't think they are necessary, but that is just my opinion.

-Pfieff

It is a precaution, but not necessary. I ran an IBM 60 GXP (known for being loud, frail, and hot) in a Gateway (OEMs known for sucky airflow) for a year and a half. I killed the thing with my own stupidity, but it ran fine for the time it was in there. Granted, I may be lucky, but that was an extreme case, and most other drives run cooler. If you feel you don't want to bother, can't spare the drive bay (if you plan on that type of HDD cooler), or for whatever other reason, don't feel that it is compulsory. At the same time, it is good insurance, so if you find a good, cheap cooler, don't hesitate to use it. After all, it won't hurt

I'm currently using this HD cooler
Link

Not only does it look cool, but it pumps an extra 20+CFM into the case.

Note: u can get same item above from ebay around $12 shipped, just type "hard drive cooler" in the search tab.

hey try this if you can.
i have 1 fan sucking hot air off 2 HD's right out the case. i would say the fan is around 2800 RPM's and it works like a charm.
HD's are just room temp.

The bay fan types are pretty useless IMHO.

If you do want to cool your HDD the best thing in my opinion is to put heatsink strips along the sides and suspend it in a 5.25" bay like this.

I just have my 2 bottom-front case intake fans blowing right on the hd. Who needs hd coolers?

Here are a couple that you might look into
http://www.coolermaster.com.hk/en/products/hdcooler/dcd-4002.html or this one http://www.antec-inc.com/f_dhcoolingsystem.html
The better ones have a heatsink that comes in contact with you hard drive.

I have two 40gb 7200rpm hdds and I have installed them into two 5 1/2 drive bays. In front of the bays, I've installed 2 80mm intake fans. These keep both my hdds under 30C all the time