i would think it would behoove some company to come up with a simple, cheap hdd water block. heck, even to make one yourself. perhaps just a large alluminum water block that would go on top of a 3.5mm hdd with an emphasis on not restricting the flow much. i've begun to wonder of the possiblity of a "through" design rather than in and out the top. what do you think? totally unnecessary? to me, cooling cpu, northbridge, vga, and hdd would be ideal, but then of course you'd not a strong pump to keep the flow up. perhaps i'm just being naive, but i would think if you had that you could make do with just one or two case fans with very low voltage, perhaps no fans at all. thoughts?
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hdd water block
- Thread starter uzibear
- Start date
there are quite a few hdd "waterblocks" available (1/2" example) . IMO having an hdd in your loop is just adding a lot of uneccessary heat. if however, you don't really care about temps and just want to cool it to avoid using case fans then by all means a viable idea.
EDIT: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!didn't see the price of that thing.....£99! (~$180). LOL. for aluminium too
EDIT: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!didn't see the price of that thing.....£99! (~$180). LOL. for aluminium too
- Thread Starter
- #3
exactly. good in theory. not in practice; yet. i really think the posibility and feasability of watercooling EVERYTHING: cpu, northbridge, hdd, gpu, and whatever else, and having zero case fans a very real goal. watercooling must catch on much more universally though: we need more money being spent on it; more producers; for prices to fall and it to begin to be designed FOR; for cpu, mobo etc. manufacturers. i think dell or the like could do well with designing a "gaming" pc of theirs with a clear window, and a tight little internal water cooling setup with lots of nice lights and pretty tubing etc.... of course, none of us would buy it, but it needs to become mass-accepted to get prices and quality to where i want it. the more designers/producers the better.
of course, none of us would buy it, but it needs to become mass-accepted to get prices and quality to where i want it. the more designers/producers the better.- Joined
- Apr 25, 2005
- Location
- U.S.A
If I remember correctly most HDD's don't put off enough heat to make much of a difference in a water cooling loop. Even the Raptors only put off something like 19 watts on spin up and less then 9 on read and write cycles for the newer drives. I'm not sure if this has really changed or if WD keeps remeasuring; although I do know they changed their bearing design making them quieter, possibly more efficient. They also stopped posting spin up wattage.
Watercooling is still growing just give it time. I'd imagine most of the larger computer builders out there aren't quite ready to give the average Joe out there a system with fluid in it.
Consider whats involved.
If water is used it will permeate the hoses over time and evaporate. Uh-oh. This means the average Joe either has to get a liquid near a computer or we have to offer free in-house refills. Ok lets say we get over that. Well, what are the chance of getting a mass produced part thats 99.5% care free? A recall because our new systems leak could cost us allot and make us look like fools. Neh. Forget is. We'll just make due with cheap, easy, and safe air, besides BTX should fix alteast some of our worries. (Not my words, but I could see it.)
The other thing I was thinking about it about the fanless design. Although I like the thought it being quiet I'm not sure I like it for some of the parts in a PC most of us take for granted because air has always been there. RAM, MOSFETS, and countless other motherboard chips rely on air movement for cooling. Even if it's warm air it's still moving picking up alittle heat as it goes.
Watercooling is still growing just give it time. I'd imagine most of the larger computer builders out there aren't quite ready to give the average Joe out there a system with fluid in it.
Consider whats involved.
If water is used it will permeate the hoses over time and evaporate. Uh-oh. This means the average Joe either has to get a liquid near a computer or we have to offer free in-house refills. Ok lets say we get over that. Well, what are the chance of getting a mass produced part thats 99.5% care free? A recall because our new systems leak could cost us allot and make us look like fools. Neh. Forget is. We'll just make due with cheap, easy, and safe air, besides BTX should fix alteast some of our worries. (Not my words, but I could see it.)
The other thing I was thinking about it about the fanless design. Although I like the thought it being quiet I'm not sure I like it for some of the parts in a PC most of us take for granted because air has always been there. RAM, MOSFETS, and countless other motherboard chips rely on air movement for cooling. Even if it's warm air it's still moving picking up alittle heat as it goes.
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2005
- Location
- Plano, Texas
i remember in a thread somwhere a guy WCed mosfets, southbridge, HDD, VGA, northbridge, CPU, and power supply ( 
) he had like a quad HC setup and a massive aquarium pump (15 feet of head) lol it was quite cool 
) he had like a quad HC setup and a massive aquarium pump (15 feet of head) lol it was quite cool 
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2004
Well my Raptors get hot as hell at times. I'd like to put them on a 2nd loop with my cps750 just so I can A:] cool them without having to increase fan noise B:] Wrap them in sound deadener to muffle some of the very high pitched noise they put out 24/7. (The sound is very similar to when your ears are ringing after a very loud noise ie; gunshot)
If defragging or anti-virus scanning etc. they get very hot - considering the raptors are my system drives I don't need them dieing prematurely due to heat.
What I want to know is, if the hdd rack is enclosed with a sound deadener and watercooled, will they stay cool enough without direct airflow?
And which is the best method of cooling??? The side-mounted waterblocks or the bottom mounted ones? Somebody is wrong because manufacturers seem to prefer one or the other - not both. Which is it?
If defragging or anti-virus scanning etc. they get very hot - considering the raptors are my system drives I don't need them dieing prematurely due to heat.
What I want to know is, if the hdd rack is enclosed with a sound deadener and watercooled, will they stay cool enough without direct airflow?
And which is the best method of cooling??? The side-mounted waterblocks or the bottom mounted ones? Somebody is wrong because manufacturers seem to prefer one or the other - not both. Which is it?
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2005
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Don't get me wrong. The older WD HDD's including some of the Raptors put out 12 watts on read/write cycles. I'm guessing these are the ones that made the most noise. I think the 200 gigs were notorious for it, but now I own 6 WD 200 that're relitively silent and two 36 gig Raptors that are pretty quiet too.
As for how to cool them, most of the HDD's heat comes from the bottom from the motor. If this is the case then if you cool the bottom with water then cooling the rest of the drive seems rather pointless. Same with cooling the sides making cooling the top pointless. Other then the bottem of the drive the rest of it is justa heat spreader. If you open up a HDD you'll find that theres nothing touching the sides or the top that generates any real heat.
(By the way, don't open up a drive if you want to keep using it....unless you know what you're doing.)
Although I haven't tried it myself I'd assume if you watercooled the bottom of a HDD you could insulate the rest of the drive without worry. If nothing else if you try it put a thermal prob here and there after assembly for a few minutes at a time to insure the cooling solution is working and keeping the drive under it's max operating temperature or at a temperature you are comfortable with. In addition you may want to check the drives internal thermal probe temps. I'd run defrag, antivirus or maybe create a .5-2 gig file of 1's or 1's and 0's to copy, and delete to make the drive work alittle and heat up. A Hex editor could help you with this.
Edit -
Looked around a bit and found this .
I'm guessing the chips on this HDD are just stacking their heat on top of what the drive it's self was already producing.
As for how to cool them, most of the HDD's heat comes from the bottom from the motor. If this is the case then if you cool the bottom with water then cooling the rest of the drive seems rather pointless. Same with cooling the sides making cooling the top pointless. Other then the bottem of the drive the rest of it is justa heat spreader. If you open up a HDD you'll find that theres nothing touching the sides or the top that generates any real heat.
(By the way, don't open up a drive if you want to keep using it....unless you know what you're doing.)
Although I haven't tried it myself I'd assume if you watercooled the bottom of a HDD you could insulate the rest of the drive without worry. If nothing else if you try it put a thermal prob here and there after assembly for a few minutes at a time to insure the cooling solution is working and keeping the drive under it's max operating temperature or at a temperature you are comfortable with. In addition you may want to check the drives internal thermal probe temps. I'd run defrag, antivirus or maybe create a .5-2 gig file of 1's or 1's and 0's to copy, and delete to make the drive work alittle and heat up. A Hex editor could help you with this.
Edit -
Looked around a bit and found this .
I'm guessing the chips on this HDD are just stacking their heat on top of what the drive it's self was already producing.
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- Apr 25, 2005
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True, I was refering to the possible thoughts of companies like Dell mass producing them.
- Thread Starter
- #10
YouEatLard said:
very true. not to mention if average joe is a gamer (or anyone buying a dell in the first place) he probably doesn't care much about noise anyway. however, i could see some little latch on the side of the case to refill a resevoir. but yes; points well taken.
- Thread Starter
- #11
apple is doing this? really? i need to see that. i really could care less about pc "putter-together-ers" (errr......) like dell, hp etc. integrating wc into pc's. rather i just think wc'ing won't become economical for us (although there are good ways to make it so) until more companies are involved. it's very good that we can use parts from other industries such as car radiators and aquarium pumps. MAINLY; i just think WATERBLOCKS ARE WAY WAY overpriced. i mean really, it's a very simply operation to make a waterblock. it's an incredibly simply piece of metal. one piece of copper cut with some groove, spiral or what have you design to get the heat in contact with as much water as possible: and another piece of metal welded on top with a couple barbs on it. there's good reason people construct there own waterblock's. it's got me wanting to get a lathe just so i don't have to pay a mint to get a really simple chunk of metal.
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2004
When I am able to, (I'm at work right now) I will post you a pic or two of the ghetto waterblock style hard drive cooling loop thingy I made. But really, A little moving Air cools the hard drives as well as the best hard drive waterblock out there. which is why I no longer use one.
uzibear said:
true that waterblocks are overpriced. though copper is an expensive metal they take advantage of the fact that watercooling is not mainstream but is groing very fast and there are still too few manufacturers to create a more competitive market. however it is also true that few waterblocks are truely mass produced and so the costs of producing them are still very high.
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2005
- Location
- U.S.A
IYIENACE said:Thanks for the link; man that hdd is cooking! Since the waterblock doesn't touch the chips that really need it most, maybe a fan would be best.
Np. There has been atleast one company that has come out with a solution to this problems though. Koolance has come out with two very different possible solutions but, as the others have mentioned they're far from being as cheap as they should be.
The first solution, the HD-40-H06 they came up with involves a two part thermal.... uhm.. stuff. I received one of these packages about a year ago but couldn't bring myself to use it. Appearently, you're supposed to mix this stuff up and pour it on the bottom of the drive. Then attach the heat sink and probably apply pressure till it touches the motor mount on the HDD. I guess the "thermal stuff" works as thermal compound to take heat off the chips. I'm guessing it gels.
I couldn't bring myself to do it. Doing it would mean that HDD would have to be forever cooled by that setup, or spending hours digging the stuff back out. That and then what happens if I the drive dies? I have to buy more thermal stuff to use the block. Nah, no thanks.
The second solution the HD-50-L06, appears to be much more intellegent although I haven't tested it to see performance.
As for prices, well it's still rather a joke. Both are over $40 (USD). The first one is just a piece of aluminum with three holes drilled in it to make an "H". Then they use epoxy or something to fill in most of the holes to make a "U".
The second appears (and I say appears because I haven't owned one) to be the same basic design to start with but then they attach plastic/aluminum EMI wrap to it to make a bag that in theory will expand with flow and touch all the chips. Is this EMI wrap electricly conductive? If it's the same stuff I think it is then yes, but I don't really know.
As for what I was talking about earlier about recalls, the second one has already had it's first recall for bad fittings.
Yeah, a fan is probably the best thing for now. Maybe if watercooling ever hits mainstream someone will change a design and make an HDD thats made to be watercooled.
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