HDD stacked heat concern

[forwhlpeil]

My 7200 rpm western digital is coming tommorrow, and i am a little concerned with heat, as my $hitty case has only three bays to share amongst the floppy, and my two drives. Im concerned about the heat buildup with a 5400 rpm and a 7200 rpm and a floppy drive all stacked together. I will have pictures of the setup later tonight, so you can get a better idea, but if anyone has any idea how i could solved this problem or if it will even BE a problem, thanks for the help.

 

[archilochus]

WELCOME TO THE FORUMS: Heres a link that may give you some ideas on various mounting techniques. Its a big thread so you need to read it all ,to get other ideas as well. THE FANMAN

LINK

 

[forwhlpeil]

sweet. That's a huge thread, read through almost the whole thing, saw a lot of ideas. Thanks for the direction. Ill probally post some pics of what i think of.

 

[gustav]

i wouldnt worry about the heat. i have a Hewlett Packard PC. it came stock with a 5,400 rpm 40 gig seagate hard drive and a floppy. i added a 7,200 rom 80 gig western digital hard drive. they get warm, but not hot. i wouldnt worry about it. but like arch said, thats a good thread he started with lots of good ideas, so if you need ideas on cooling, just go back to his thread.

 

[squirtle632]

I beg to differ. I had a WD 120gb drive that died from heat. I had it mounted away from air flow and it was running 24/7 for about a year before it died. I asked WD and they said it was heat failure. Try to get some kinda of air circulation around there. The max temp for a WD drive is about 134°F/50°C. I cannot find link on the WD site but you can call WD can confirm what I said.

 

[gustav]

well you never know what really caused the death of the hard drive, it may have been heat, it may have been a ticking time bomb lemon. just as long as they dont get too hot, they are fine. like i said i have mine stacked and they dont get hot. they get warm to the touch, but no where near 134F/50C.

 

[caddyg1]

I dont think you can tell what the inside Temp in on any HDD... I have 4 stacked 3 are in front of an intake fan while the other is nestled with my floppy and I can tell by the touch that there is a big differance between the temps. Make sure you have airflow!

 

[forwhlpeil]

Aight, well then the next problem is how do i get airflow there? I have never done any case modding before, but maybe you guys had some ideas? I though i could maybe slap one drive in with the floppy and one in the unsed 5.25 bays. Here is a pic so you can better understand what is going on. None of the hard drives are in in this pic.

Here are two links to pics, the first is a shot of the triple stack jobbie, and the second is an idea that i had, there is a hole on the other side of the case, that could allow the mounting of a fan right there to blow on the drives, but i don't know if this would allow for enough air to come in over the small holes. Let me know what you guys think. Th anks

Images are a bit big. Ill try and resize em and ****, it's hard not using your own computer with all your apps on it.

http://oregonstate.edu/~peila/gertz/100OLYMP/P1010026.JPG

http://oregonstate.edu/~peila/gertz/100OLYMP/P1010031.JPG

 

[gustav]

you should do what Arch suggested earlier in this thread and check out this thread.

its very imformative in case modding for not only the Xaiser III but for all cases. go there and ask around, or look at the many pics, you should get some ideas of how to cool your drives.

 

[clocker2]

In your first pic it appears as though your drive bay may be removable, is that so?
If not, it's at most a matter of a few rivets and hark!, it's gone.

You already have a place for a fan in the case front, that absurd grill has got to go first though, and with the drive bay gone, you could stand your HDDs on end as Arch has done and they would all get some benefit from the fan flow. Plus, they would be separated, so heat buildup should be greatly reduced.

 

[forwhlpeil]

Oh yea, that little stacker bay just slides right off. Pretty sweet. But i'd like to keep my floppy, and yes i have fans in the mail, one is for that spot in the front, but i wasn't sure how to stand the drives up on end, i saw the double sticky tape apporach, not to sure on that one... But also i was thinking of just hacking the cage into two parts, the top part would stay so the floppy would mount up there, and then using the bottom part to mount the two drives... Hmm...

 

[clocker2]

"Hmmm", indeed.
Cutting the bay to keep the floppy sounds like a plan.
Using the rest to mount the HDDs sounds like it still leaves them stacked right next to each other though, so what have you really gained?
Arch's sticky tape mount gave me pause at first, but he seems to know what he's doing and wouldn't cavalierly recommend a bad mod.
I'm sure with a little thought and a trip to a good hardware store ( my favorite thinking/dreaming/idea formulating spot!) you can come up with something.

 

[forwhlpeil]

True, and i've got until friday now before my hd gets here. Stupid ups *accidentally* sent it to kentucky instead of oregon. That's actually what the lady said on the fone. Cool. I love how 2nd day air takes a week....... Since i've got some time to think, ill see what i can come up with.. Ill post if i get idears.

 

[Como]

heh, second day indeed. i orderd my mobo+dvdR/CDRW on christmas eve, ssecond day. i expected delays, but from what i can tell they still have not sent it.

 

[Cuda]

Oh yea, that little stacker bay just slides right off. Pretty sweet. But i'd like to keep my floppy, and yes i have fans in the mail, one is for that spot in the front, but i wasn't sure how to stand the drives up on end, i saw the double sticky tape apporach, not to sure on that one... But also i was thinking of just hacking the cage into two parts, the top part would stay so the floppy would mount up there, and then using the bottom part to mount the two drives... Hmm...

After looking at your pics, that is exactly the approach I would take. Mount your fan in the space provided, and then mount the cage behind it. You can use strips of metal to extend the mounting tabs to the front of the case and additional strips to support it from the rest of the cage containing the floppy. There should be enough of a gap between the drives to allow airflow around then.

 

[FizzledFiend]

your over worried...want proof?

count them thats six (6) yes six 7200 hard drives they are a tad warm to the touch but not so that I am concerned i have not had a harddrive failure in the past 2 years and no worries of corruption...I hear alot of hype about cooling harddrives, but in reality unless your crazy fast like a 10,000 rpm drive or SCSI I wouldn't sweat it as much as your thinking

 

[gustav]

your over worried...want proof?

count them thats six (6) yes six 7200 hard drives they are a tad warm to the touch but not so that I am concerned i have not had a harddrive failure in the past 2 years and no worries of corruption...I hear alot of hype about cooling harddrives, but in reality unless your crazy fast like a 10,000 rpm drive or SCSI I wouldn't sweat it as much as your thinking

thats what im saying, i have 2 hard drives, one 5,400 rpm and one 7,200 rpm. they are stacked on on top of the other, and they are only warm to the touch and have no cooling. when i put my system together with 2 WD raptors in RAID 0, you better bet they will have a fan behind them cuz they get hot. but for 2 regular speed hard drives, you needent worry. all its doing is pouring cool air over your hard drives and then that cool air turns into hot air thats dumped into you case. which doesnt help what really needs to be kept cool and thats the processor. i will also have a 5,400 rpm hard drive, but that will be in the cage with the floppy with no cooling.

 

[Como]

i insulated a 7200 maxtor, it got awfly hot (i'd say over 100 F) in little time...the insulation wasntpurposeful, but it was an effort to quiet it. i've redesinged my quiet-box, the harddrive now has air around most of it, but i'm still worried it may get too hot over time and fail....should the hard drive have at least SOME airflow?

 

[clocker2]

Hard to tell isn't it,Como?
My theory is that it certainly can't hurt and my case airflow/ambient temp is good enough that distributing the heat from the HDD ( if any ??!!) ain't no prob.

 

[gustav]

Hard to tell isn't it,Como?
My theory is that it certainly can't hurt and my case airflow/ambient temp is good enough that distributing the heat from the HDD ( if any ??!!) ain't no prob.

well i may be fighting a losing battle. but i must agree with the guy with 6 7200 rpm drives. they really just dont get that hot. yes they get warm, but unless you have some high speed performance drives (like the raptors or scsi) then you really dont need cooling for the hard drives. if the drives are getting hot, hot enough to make them fail, according to squirtle632, then if you put a fan behind them, the fan will draw in cool air, pass over these extremly hot hard drives, warm up and be dumped into the case. first of all, like i said, i dont think your hard drives will get that hot unless they are high speed performace drives. now if for some reason they do get that hot, and your case temps are good as they are, the drives should increase the ambient a good few degrees, which will increase your cpu temp, which if you use air cooling, will affect your OC. it really depends on the opinion of the person. if they feel their drives are getting so hot they need to be cooled, and that it wont affect the rest of their system, by all means they should cool their drives. but in reality, the drives really dont get so hot to the point of failure and dont need very much, if any cooling. this is just my view on it.