Would you recommend a hdd fan for a hdd?

[OC Guy]

The title says it all. Would you? Is it absolutely nessary? It's for my dad's machine, he's fixin' to get a 7,200 rpm 40 gig hdd. He doesn't like adding stuff if it isn't needed.

[SPEEDO]

From my point of view I think your dad is right!
If you have a couple of case fans in there you should have plenty of air moving around to keep it cool.
Just try to keep the hard drive down near the bottom of the cage where it should be cooler.

SPEEDO

[thekingofpain]

Ive seen no use for them, if its a quality drive it should be able to cut the mustard---are you in the vacinity of the equator where its hot and humid? Is your Pops computer room above 110° on a regular basis (we may need more info)---if it is he may have probs with other components before the hdd gives up the ghost...

[daveleau]

I agree. I had one for a while but saw no benefit from it. I sold it with one of my systems.

Dave

[This message has been edited by daveleau (edited 09-05-2001).]

[Brian48]

There was time when the early 7200rpm HDDs did generate alot of heat, but that was nearly three years ago. I've yet to see a 7200rpm these days that didn't run fairly cool (all things considered). I wouldn't worry about it.

[shahani]

If you have multiple hard drives, mounted close to each other, you may have a problem. If they are separated by atleast an inch of air, you don't really need hdd fans nowadays as they run fairly "cool" - 110 degrees F is about the highest. But if there is no ventilation, then the 110 can even double: what happens if you park a closed car in the sun even in winter?

I have 3 hdds and only one small old CPU fan circulating air in the cage and everything works OK.

[Emc2]

shahani,
I'd advise at least one more fan if you plan to keep everything longer than 3-4 months.

I'd only say you needed a fan if you have a SCSI drive running at 15,000 RPM. I've got a fan in the front, a Golden Orb on the processor, fan on the ps, 2 small 486 fans on the video card, and I'm debating on whether to put a small 486 fan running over my harddrive because it's sandwiched b/t a CDRW and a CD-ROM. I've got a floppy in one small bay, and hopefully one of these days an internal ZIP drive to go in the other. Those internals do seem to go fast...

Overall, there's no need for a fan over the harddrive unless alot of stuff is crammed into the case (which is fixing to be my case).

[Winterwynde]

Actually, I've seen a fairly big difference in HDD temps when cooling with just an 80mm fan blowing across it, versus the HDD sitting in a drive cage or removable cage.

I have two IBM 7200 RPM drives in my rig. One has an 80mm fan blowing across it, and it stays at a constant 30*C (about 86*F). My room temp is only 28*C. Now the other drive sits in a removable cage, with negligible air flow, save for a 40mm fan blowig across the back of the drive (across the IDE connectors inside the cage railing). This drive idles at 38*C, and under read/write loads maxes about 40*C.

If you're interested in extending the life of your drive, I'd suggest providing some sort of active airflow around it.