Storage: External Enclosure (hard drive): FAN OR NO FAN?
External Enclosure (hard drive): FAN OR NO FAN?
by rakine23 - 7/19/06 2:56 PMA company that makes external enclosures told me that people have perception that a fan is necessary for an enclosure and that they only still make enclosures with fans to keep from losing customers to competitors.
I am wanting to puchase an external enclosure for my Western Digital 3.5", 7200RPM, 250GB, SATA II hard drive and run a powerful software on it. Does anyone have opinions regading having a fan or no fan?
Will not having a fan but having a good aluminum heat desipation ruin my hard drive/lower the number of years that drive will last?
I am interested in the new Macally SATA enclosure. Any opinions on the Macally enclosure brands?
Fans are good idea
by Willy - 7/20/06 4:53 AM In reply to: External Enclosure (hard drive): FAN OR NO FAN? by rakine23Due to varations is "ambient" room tempertures and the enclosure itself, having a fan allows greater stability in its use. It's true the metal case will allow some heat dissaption but that not enough for the long run and HDs do fail in std. system cases with all its fans. Heat is now the most common killer of a HD, so all attention to reduce heat is good news. The cost of a fan is hardly a back breaker so pick a fan supplied ext. case and one well vented as well.
tada -----Willy 
reply
by rakine23 - 7/20/06 9:11 AM In reply to: Fans are good idea by WillyWhat about a HD that runs cool (I have a hard drive that advertises as runs quiet and cool)?
Good hard drive died
by nzrabbitty - 7/21/06 4:10 AM In reply to: reply by rakine23Had a seagate 120 Gig harddrive run well rtransfer3ed it to a good ext drive case, and as was switching drives in and out of drive case faily often didn't put cover over found that not only the harddrive but the case circuitry got to hot and cooked the control gear in the drive case. now have got new case and have fitted extra fan to front and drive has never skipped a beat in 2 years
new/more powerful fan for two internal hard drives?
by stevel227 - 7/21/06 6:19 AM In reply to: External Enclosure (hard drive): FAN OR NO FAN? by rakine23The recent Q&A on cooling fans triggered a question. I have an older Dell machine, factory built, with the original cooling fan (to which I've never given a moment's thought until now). A year or so ago, I added a big Western Digital hard drive to expand my storage. I didn't have a way to install it into a physical rack inside the box, so I put a piece of velcro on the bottom of the drive. The velcro plus the ribbon cable and power cable keep it in a nice rigid position, positioned in an open spot on the floor of the box. It has a lot of air space around it for cooling.
Should I take out the existing fan and put in a higher capacity one, recognizing that I have two hard drives throwing off heat?
Steve
fan or no fan?
by papawterry1949 - 7/21/06 7:53 AM In reply to: External Enclosure (hard drive): FAN OR NO FAN? by rakine23Let me tell you from personal experience,
fans increase hard drive life!
No matter what the manufacturer uses for temperature parameters, keep the drives cool!
I have replaced so many drives in my customers' computers that died from heat I always use fan cooled enclosures and extra fans in the case.
You can buy them so cheap at most electronics stores (Radio Shack is one) with an in and out connector for ease of connection, there's no reason not to have plenty of air moving.
It's the cheapest thing you can do to save money.....
Terry
Fan implementation and heat-sink design important too
by jmagecko - 7/21/06 10:44 AM In reply to: External Enclosure (hard drive): FAN OR NO FAN? by rakine23Whether a fan can help or not depends on how the enclosure is designed.
It also depends on not only the enclosure material (e.g. aluminum), but HOW the drive is mechanically connected to the enclosure.
I have one well known 3.5" aluminum enclosure that incorporates TWO fans, and it is virtually useless at keeping the drive cool. Here's why.
1) The 2 fans are mounted at the front, and draw air in from the front with NO venting from the case at all. NONE. So there is no air flow over the disk drive.
In addition, the fans are mounted at such an angle, that even if there were venting, the air volume would be substantially diminished. They are mounted at an almost 60 degree angle off vertical, and because they are mounted so close to the disk drive, there's little clearance for the air flow even if there were vents.
2) While the case is aluminum, the disk drive itself is mounted onto a PLASTIC frame, which virtually isolates the drive from the aluminum from a thermal standpoint. The benefit of having a metal enclosure is almost totally lost by the manufacturer using the non-thermally conductive plastic mounting frame. Yes, there is going to be some heat dissipation due to transfer of heat in the air between the drive and the case, but it would be substantially improved by providing a means to thermally couple the drive's metal case/heatsink to the enclosure's metal case.
I wasted $35 thinking I was getting an enclosure with superior heat dissipating features...only to find it was actually vastly inferior. It was essentially equivalent to a non-fan equipped, plastic, unvented enclosure. It was like an oven.
After I made substantial modifications to change the fan mountings, and provide outlet vent holes, the drive temp decreased by almost 40degF. That's a major difference as far as impact on reliability goes. If I were to change the drive mounting somehow to a direct thermally conductive mount, I believe the temp would decrease even more.
External disk enclosure cooling
by Stan002 - 7/21/06 2:39 PM In reply to: Fan implementation and heat-sink design important too by jmageckoI would recommend using a fan cooled enclosure but unfortunately as already noted a fan is only good if it moves cool air over the drive. I have one where the fan is almost completely blocked by the drive. If the air coming out of the fan is virtually non-existant or is not warm, it is not cooling properly. Also, the case is not warm so the drive will eventually fail due to the heat. Aluminum enclosures may be somewhat effective if the drive makes a good thermal contact with the case - such as using thermal grease or thermal pads to incure a good thermal path to the case. The case must have adequate external surface area (such as employing fins) to eliminate the heat.
I haven't done a thermal analysis yet but I strongly suspect that many commercial enclosures, with or without a fan, provide inadequate cooling.
external disk cooling
by NeilFiertel - 8/4/06 6:15 PM In reply to: External disk enclosure cooling by Stan002I have something in the order of twenty hard drives and NONE have ever failed due to heat problems. In the old days of SCSI drive heat was an issue but with ATA and SATA this is a non-issue as the processing of data control is is computer controlled and out of the box. I have fan driven boxes...noisy...plastic boxes...cheesy but cheap, USB 2.0 and Firewire and all of them do sufficiently...none get more than warm to the touch...never hot and most are pretty much sealed from the outside and it is only through direct heat conduction do they cool. Obviously,this is not an issue at all. I should point out that I am running 8 or nine at a time, writing to file very large image files and processing them as well and thus using the drives hard. When a day of hard work has passed the drives are warm and that is it. I stack only drives designed to stack and many I CHOSE to use their vertical stand so that they are on edge. I do not note much difference between the temperature of the stacked units and the edge mounted ones though the stacked ones are slightly warmer. I have found for the money that the Macally external cases are good though the power connectors are a bit flakey. I glue them in place as they want to fall out. Dollar for dollar I have found that a great deal is the complete hard drives sold under the AcomData brand...lovely cases, quiet and fast both in Firewire and USB 2. Naturally, LaCie are better built cases but are a lot more money and really, the case is basically furniture for the hard drive. In terms of drive brands, I have Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung and Western Digital. Drives with magnetic or air bearings will last longer and are near silent. I would expect though cannot verify that they are cooler running at high speed.
Hmmm...
by IMReader - 8/19/07 11:18 PM In reply to: external disk cooling by NeilFiertelI wouldn't say they never fail due to heat. The drives themselves don't fail very often, but depending on the case the USB/Firewire/whatever controller can fry.
Recommendations?
by byu1980 - 8/19/06 4:14 PM In reply to: Fan implementation and heat-sink design important too by jmageckoI'm shopping for a couple of 3.5" hard drive enclosures now, and have considered Galaxy Metal Gear's Model 3507 and Cintre's Model CI-330U2, as well as Vantec's Nexstar 3 models. Can you share the make/model of the one you described that disappointed you? Do you have any recommendations for makes/models currently available that you would purchase?
recommendation
by rakine23 - 8/19/06 5:34 PM In reply to: Recommendations? by byu1980I am the original poster. I decided to purchase the Addobic external enclosure, AE5SACSUF. I just got it and it works well so far. No problems yet. The case is made of thick, sturdy aluminum. I formatted my Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB drive and it took an hour and a half to format. Even after one and a half hour, the case still felt cool and when I placed my hand behind the fan, cool air was still coming out. The fan was loud when I first turned on the drive but now it is not so loud. Don't know whether I just got used to the noise or if the fan noise actually went down.
This case works with SATA I and SATA II. It has a cypress chipset, which I read are good chipsets.
Thanks--IDE & SATA?
by byu1980 - 8/19/06 6:45 PM In reply to: recommendation by rakine23I'm likely at least 2 years away from a system supporting the newer SATA drives. I have two Seagate 160 GB Ultra ATA/100/133 drives in my PC, replacing two Seagate 60 GB drives (one of which was a warranty replacement for an earlier failure). Both were replaced when a Windows update glitch fouled up many program installations, and I couldn't retrace my steps. I also have two identical 160GB spares which I plan to use as externals.
Is your enclosure strictly SATA-capable, or IDE as well? Perhaps I should look for a model that can accept both, for use down the road when I am able to upgrade to a new motherboard, processor, etc.
And thanks for your quick posting!
SATA and IDE
by rakine23 - 8/19/06 10:39 PM In reply to: Thanks--IDE & SATA? by byu1980The Addonics AE5SACSUF enclosure also supports IDE.
To be sure, go to www.addonics.com. If you connect by IDE, the IDE cable connects directly to the hard drive. If you use SATA I or SATA II, the IDE connects to a converter and the converter connects to the hard drive. This enclosure can connect to your computer by either USB or firewire. There is also a USB version. I believe the USB version model number AE5SACSU2. This enclosure was released about two years ago.
I highly recommend purchasing from www.newegg.com. They have one of the fastest shipping service. For example, I could order on Monday afternoon and it would be delivered to me on Thursday. This website has very good reviews.
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