New external drive

Message

#16 Post by **palmboy5** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:36 pm

mannyace wrote:hey palm, in ur pic, are the fans blowing the air up and away from the drives? how are they physically attached to the drives? where are they getting power from?

ive been lookin for cases with fans and theyr like $50 which puts my total at like $120-130... either i buy a mybook or some lacie drive or i try to copy ur set up

http://www.mylilsite.net/images/sdhdcooling1.jpg

I took the ends of the positive and grounding pins from the fan's power connector out of the connector, and wired them to the 5V (12V is normal but thats overkill) and grounding pins of the power thats going to the hard drive. The fan setup is the same as every other HSF of that type, it blows into the heatsink.

That Rosewill enclosure looks good, the HSF mod will work on it, but please note that the surface with the label on it is the least heat conductive, and will be the least effective surface to cool on the hard drive. Also, since it is SATA, there are no obvious points to connect the fan's positive and grounding to other than soldering to the right pins on the bottom of the SATA power connection. My second external is an SATA, and I had to get the 5V from an exposed part of the power input plug (for the enclosure, not the drive). Then the grounding to just one of the screws since, in a proper design, if the thing has a metal casing, that casing is grounded. In fact, if you DO put the heatsink on that surface with the label, the parts of the surface not covered by the label is grounded too. I thought about just connecting the ground pin back to the heatsink itself and make it conduct to the hard drive surface as grounding, but then I laughed at the idea and decided not to do it.

mannyace · #17 Post by **mannyace** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:06 pm

damn, all that stuff is beyond me, i can barely understand you and i seriously doubt that i could actually set it up... cross your mod off of my list

heres my options now:

WD My Book Essential 2.0, 500 GB, link
around $100, i wont necessarily buy from newegg and its w/o esata

or this Lacie (Neil P), 500 GB, link
similar price, $100ish, no esata again

or i put this Seagate and Antec enclosure togeter, drive + case
again 500 GB but its like $130 which is a little higher than i want, but i guess in the long run its not so bad, esp since its got esata and its sorta future proof

any thoughts on the drives? the enclosure? is it worth it to get the esata even tho i cant use it now? again i just want the drive to work and not fail in a year or 2, im not worried about it being the quickest set up... and thanks for helping me btw

#18 Post by **palmboy5** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:50 am

I would choose the Lacie. The WD's user reviews are scary about heat issues and the Antec + HDD costs more.

mannyace · #19 Post by **mannyace** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 10:21 am

I'm kind of thinkin i should just shell out the extra $20 (or wait a few days and find a sale or promo code) and get the drive and enclosure

they will work together right? i know that once the fan dies (its moving parts so eventually it will dies) ill just open the case and leave it, itll be like the lacie or the wd where the heat just radiates outwards w/o a fan... unless u think the fan is gonna die really quickly and then its just a waste of money? i honestly cant tell/decide...

im also waiting on an email back from antec to see if the fan will recognize when the drive spins down and if the fan will still be cooling when the drive is idle, if it keeps goin its def gonna shorten the life of the fan (and the enclosure basically)

#20 Post by **palmboy5** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:58 pm

Just in my opinion/experience, cases that say heat radiates out without a fan are bullshit. The Lacie just looks like the lesser of two evils. The best designs for passively getting rid of heat would stand the drive upright to take full advantage of the heat rising. This is what my Buffalo enclosure does, but after months of suspicion on its effectiveness, I still found that the hard drive got to about 50C+ (thats really high).

I can't tell from the pics, but I think the type of fan they're using in that Antec enclosure is centrifugal, and should be quite reliable.

Your choice, to shell out the extra cash for that setup or not.

mannyace · #21 Post by **mannyace** » Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:44 pm

thanks for your help palm, i think im gonna shell out the cash and just get it

heres better pics if u wanna see, its got a diagram of the air flow http://www.silentpcreview.com/article728-page2.html

#22 Post by **palmboy5** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 1:13 am

Oh that cooling design using the centrifugal fan looks really nice, definitely moves the air past the hard drive to keep it cool, AND the hard drive is mounted on rubber so the thing is silent! Sweet.

mannyace · #23 Post by **mannyace** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 7:19 am

I found out from their customer support that when powered, the fan runs all the time, meaning it doesnt know if the disk has spun down or is idle and that its not aware of the temp inside

good for cooling, bad for longevity, whatev...

#24 Post by **palmboy5** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:28 pm

When exactly does the HDD turn off? Mine never do.

mannyace · #25 Post by **mannyace** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:56 pm

they dont actually turn off, they still use power, the light stays on...

but they do spin down when you don't access them, i hear my 2 wd's spin down after a while when i dont actively use them

my external hp does not do this though so maybe its specific models, i think u can also tinker with the power settings in windows but not sure if thats responsible for my 2 wd's or for any externals for that matter

#26 Post by **palmboy5** » Sat Aug 23, 2008 5:54 pm

I have always set my HDDs to turn off after time, but they never do. I try to blame this on my DeadAIM constantly logging the activity of people in my list, but then that would only affect one of my HDDs.. None of them turn off. A more realistic guess would be that since the drives have been shared on the network, they aren't allowed to shut off.

mannyace · #27 Post by **mannyace** » Sun Aug 24, 2008 4:41 am

i also think if u try to open my computer or explorer, it calculates free space and all that... sometimes when my 2 wd's have spun down, my computer takes an extra 20 seconds to load, kinda annoying but ive gotten used to it

#28 Post by **palmboy5** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 4:29 pm

I got a Coolmax 3.5" SATA enclosure recently for $20, it has by far the best passive cooling of my enclosures, and its just so simple! An aluminum casing and the HDD is screwed to it, the casing acts as a functional passive heatsink. HDD got to about 48C, high but impressive for passive.

Fan mod:
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/coolmax ... sdfan1.jpg
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/coolmax ... sdfan2.jpg
http://www.mylilsite.net/images/coolmax ... sdfan3.jpg

Got the fan from a notebook cooling pad that was 7 bucks for 3 fans and a built in 4 port USB hub (what a deal!). Resulting temperature: 38C.