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Hd heatsink Mod

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Wolfe

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2002
Location
Chasing his Cat ^_^
This is pretty much to show off a simple hard drive mod i did a couple months back that might be of intrest to some people. had been having constant hard drive overheating problems (as in too hot to hold your finger on), and decided to bolt some large heatsinks on it. the temp dropped to just above ambient, and the hard drive actually performs better.

DSCF0001.JPG
 
Okay, this may be a dumb question, especially since I see the sides there....But, why are the heat sinks on the side and not on the top and bottom? I ask, because I have come up with my own hard drive heat sink idea. I haven't implemented it yet though. If I can learn something here, it might help.
 
I understand why they are not on the bottom...can short out the HD that way...but wouldn't having smaller ones on the top, using the front case intake fan to cool them off work better?
 
2 reasons,

1. i dont want to drill and tap holes in the top,

2. The heat producing machinery, the motor is actually mounted on the bottom, so the sides are as close as you can get. Ideally, youu would just glue a heatsink directly to the motor.

Also, the top does not conduct heat well. it is too thin. there are also no heat producing devises heatsinked to it.
 
Well looking at where those heatsinks are mounted you just screwed them into the existing mounting holes, btw there are also mounting holes on the bottom of the hard drive if you wanted to put a wider sink across, that's how most hard drive's are attached to hard drive coolers.
Btw now you have those coolers on the sides how are you mounting the hard drive in the case ?
 
I would have never done that with a new drive. :D

But congrats, looks good.
 
ther are mounting holes on the bottom, but there is very little contact area, so it wouldn't help much. I an considering trying to mount a mobo chipset WB on the motor housing though.

I didnt have to mod the Hard drive at all, i just drillled new holes in the heatsink.
 
umm... why not use thermal epoxy to attach sinks to the chips and motor, and get actual cooling acomplished? BTW, my maxtor stays perfectly cool mounted in the cage with the fan in my antec. its a 7200 RPM 8 meg cache 80 gigger. without the fan, it gets a lil tasty warm LOL
 
this gets actuall cooling acomplioshed too. anyways, you need larce heatsinks to get rid of the heat. the temp of the hard drive dropped like 20 - 40 deg F from like 110 to aout 80 deg F
 
hmmm I didn't think a HD could require heatsinks. although my HDs are mounted parallel to the airflow right infront of my two 80mm intake fans so they get cooled that way. I am guessing good case airflow and good placement of the drive makes enough diference in most cases for HD temps.
 
hard drives generaly dont generate much heat, BUT if it is stuck mounted in a hotspot (read as a place with little or no air movment) the drives cant cool of, and they seem to be exelent at keeping and adding to heat...

Then offcourse, some drives do get hot...
B!
 
I dont know about how much cooling Hard drives require, but if i placed it on my desk like in the picture with out the heatsinks, in totally open air, it would get really hot. It is 7200 rpm, but i am not sure how much of a diffrence that would make (i havent got anything to judge it against).
 
I am modding a bootload of HDs at the moment and I give this guy a big WOOT!
urock.gif
for trying something different and being the first :D
COOL!
 
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