Storage forum: External Enclosure (hard drive): FAN OR NO FAN?

Due 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

What if I use an aluminum enclosure without a fan but the drive's temperature stays within the specified operating temperature range, what are the chances of the drive failing?

The 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

Whether 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.

I 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.

I'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?

I'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!

It appears that even the AE5SACSU2 (USB 2.0 w/o firewire model) uses the SATA - IDE/ATAPI converter to connect to an IDE drive (or does it convert a SATA drive to an IDE device?). See this URL:
http://www.addonics.com/products/io/adsaide.asp. It looks like this has to connect to an IDE cable coming from an IDE channel on the motherboard, and defeats the purpose of having an external enclosure connected to the PC via a USB 2.0 port. Wouldn't the SATA hard drive be outside the enclosure in this case? Keep in mind I only have IDE (Ultra ATA/100) hard drives now. I'm using both ports on both IDE channels on my IDE-only motherboard. Addonics has a model AE5IDECSU2 that doesn't accommodate SATA that is more like the IDE-only units I've been looking at. Also, I've seen (but can't remember where) one make/model that had all the alternative connectors inside the enclosure for both IDE and SATA. Again, because I'm likely 2 years away from a new system, I'll probably buy a couple of IDE-only enclosures, possibly the Addonics AE5IDECSU2.

Thanks for your help.

These days to many people think that you can just stick in a component and expect it to work for years.

Not so..!!.. The main enemy of any electronic part is heat. Remove the heat and you can expect longer more stable operation of whatever you have at hand.

Todays harddrives(higher capacity) are running hot to the touch, with marginal use, so it is a wise move to cool it off as much as reasonably possible.

I can't stress it more...GET AN EXTERNAL ENCLOSURE WITH A FAN THAT HAS GOOD CROSS FLOW OF AIR. ie. air comes in on one side, cools, then exits, without reentering the enclosure(Recirculating the air so that it reenters the enclosure can super heat the component/s, causing premature failure)

What I have indicated applys to all enclosures.


As an aside topic now:

My endevours to reach this goal with computer chassics includes removing the punched fan screens, drilling vent holes in the fronts, ogmenting the fans to draw air in and vent in specific directions, etc., to drop internal temps to a managable level. And to be fair these days most manufacturers are providing adequate ventilation for their chassics(you should look!)but not enough fans to move the air.

Two of the more popular tiny trial/freeware software packages might be helpful to view temps are, Everest Corporate and AIDA32(in the computer sensor section.)or the computer BIOS may monitor the temperature of the CPU, and the motherboard which are available to view(CPU temp can be set, to alarm and shutdown at specified temperature on some motherboards)

Hope That was of help

Regards Dan,
Electronics Control/Mechanical Technologist

I did see it but could not e-mail the company for more info so going with another brand.
See my most recent post and give some suggestion if you have one.

The reason I do not put "thanks" is because it is a waste of space. What I mean is if I say "thanks" to each reply, then it is frustrating for the person replying to my post because he or she has to read through each post.

While I will agree that the courteous thing to do would be to say thank you, I will also point out that it is in most forums regarded as bad netiqutte. The people who read the forums do not want to wade through page after page of thanks to everyone who has contributed. They would quickly abandon the forum, therefore defeating the open exchange of ideas. A much more palatable solution is to wait until the flow of ideas has slowed to a crawl on the particular topic, and then for the people who wish to include a thank you to do so, but with the subject line saying Thank You so that readers can easily distinguish the topic of that particular message.

Warning: The opinion stated here is my own and one that I adhere to. It does NOT mean that I am right or wrong, or that I am somehow better or worse than any other valuable contributor to this forum. That being said, I find that the majority of contributors do not offer their opinions for any other reason than to help resolve a problem or answer a question. Period. They have no other motivations except to help. They freely share their knowledge and expertise for the benefit of the entire computer community. While they deserve ample amounts of praise and thanks, that is not their motivation or desire. To illicit a response for "thanks" does a huge disservice to not only the illicitor, but the community as a whole. The only response we should require would be to let the community know what the resolution was so that we can all learn and grow. If thanks are included, that is no problem and welcomed, but it should NEVER be a requirement for posting.

cnetsean,

In the short period of time my ADAPTEC hard disk enclosure (from Best Buy) worked it never seemed to get that warm. I had a new 120GB W-D Caviar hard disk that I installed in it. As far as I could tell the aluminum case (with no fan) was able to dissipate the heat generated by the hard disk. However, the W-D hard disk only worked intermittently from the beginning and ultimately failed within a few days. Realistically, I think this W-D hard disk was malfunctioning prior to any potential heat damage

I am awaiting to hear W-D's diagnosis of this hard disk, as I have no idea why it died so rapidly...or possibly it was deffective from the manufacturer.

Kevin

I got a hard drive that didnt work in my computer, and with no money to replace it or warranty (no return sales) I got a 3.5 enclosure to use (no fan) to use on my three-computer network (24 7). The Maxtor drive quit after 3 months, (80 GB. Drive had 52 GB. Used) lost it all! I had a 250 GB drive that I was saving to put in a rebuild, but I put it in the case but I cut a hole in the top of the case and put a CPU fan on it keeps it cold!
old.giant61

I have three external drives which are metal and have open grills on front and side edges, no fan. I have a plastic, totally enclosed unit, no fan.

Because I'm doing video production which really thrashes drives about, I use the "open" enclosures for long periods, and only use the plastic one for backing up, so that it doesn't accumulate heat.

My own experience is that the mechanical parts of the hard drive can cope with heat quite well, but the controller circuitry is what needs protection. Seagate released a series of drives that came wrapped in a soft rubber envelope, and I enquired about overheating--they report "no problems". My experience is the same.

I have a preference for fans, but they are not always going to be essential. In my enclosed server, I have huge fans which can be turned off when recording something, I have measured the drive temperatures in both situations, 30C/86F to 50C/122F.

Because of a CPU burnout, the machine I'm typing this on, has a 12 inch floor fan blowing in the side. Drive temperature is 34C/93F. Despite being winter in Australia, being fitted with three fans and a heatsink that weighs as much as a bull-bar, the chip temperature is still up to 70C/158F.

These days, a high-power chip is pulling as much power as a hunting spot-light, hard drives a low load by comparison, so for drives, metal enclosures with heatsinking should be adequate.