Are modern enclosures dangerous for hard drives ?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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jjr
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Are modern enclosures dangerous for hard drives ?

Post by jjr » Thu Oct 20, 2005 4:05 pm

I may be completely mislead on this one but ....

Most modern enclosures are using those sort of easy to install drive rails for easier HD monting and removal.
Now, AFAIK those are in plastic in the vast majority of cases. As a consequence, they will provide thermal insulation (while still being a mostly rigid mechanical mount not removing the vibration, I fear)

As anyone experienced dangerous HD temp. when using that kind of system whithout direct HD cooling ?

stromgald
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Post by stromgald » Thu Oct 20, 2005 5:54 pm

I think most Dells suffer from this problem. Especially the older 8200 and 8300 series. No front cooling, poor intakes, and plastic drive rails. Yes, the temps are higher for hard drives in my Dell Dimension 8200 than my Antec 3000B with direct cooling, and I think it reduces hard drive life somewhat. To what degree I don't know.

I wouldn't say that the hard drive temps would be 'dangerous' (which I assume means failure in less than a year) unless there's zero airflow in the case.

pangit
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Post by pangit » Thu Oct 20, 2005 8:09 pm

Yes, you lose the heatsink effect of traditional metal mountings, but most modern cases have better airflow than they used to, so it's not normally a problem.

If your HDDs are in some kind of airflow, even from a 5V Panaflo or an open intake, that should be enough. If in doubt, monitor temps for a while and keep them below about 40C.

vertigo
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Post by vertigo » Fri Oct 21, 2005 3:36 am

If in doubt, monitor temps for a while and keep them below about 40C.
I would say that's a bit too zealous. Just make sure they stay below 60C on hot days and you should be fine. I have seen drives run incredibly hot for years on end without any problem. One such drive was a Seagate Cheetah which ran consistently over 70C.

Of course, cooler is always better. You should be able to get your drives running 30C-40C 90% of the time.

Chang
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Post by Chang » Sun Oct 23, 2005 9:46 am

FWIW, Maxtor specs a max temp of 55C as measured from the top cover for their drives (with or without a fan). They also suggest a minimum of around 10 CFM airflow over them.

pangit
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Post by pangit » Mon Oct 24, 2005 3:07 pm

Well I've lost a drive (at least partly) due to overheating, so I tend to be over zealous with my own drives.

For me (and I'm sure for most of us) hard drive failure is much more of a disaster than any other component, due to the loss of data. Even if you have a backup, it takes forever to restore your system to how it was before (Windoze + endless patches + drivers + applications + settings + data). I would never risk running them near the limit of manufacturer's specs for any length of time.

And anyway, cooling drives below 40C is a synch, as all they need is a bit of air flowing over them and not be in a too restricted space. It's a no-brainer IMHO.

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