Cooling hard drives?

[Grasshopper]

I'm assembling parts for my Sage server, and am beginning to think about hard drive cooling. As I understand it, Sage will give your HD's a workout. Should I think about different cooling solutions for internal hd's? Any recommendations?

[insomniac]

Im using 3 of these and am very happy with their looks and noise level (in low).

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...888-111&depa=0

My hard drives stay at 32c to 38c at all times. Extra security is worth it to me.

I.

Originally posted by Grasshopper
I'm assembling parts for my Sage server, and am beginning to think about hard drive cooling. As I understand it, Sage will give your HD's a workout. Should I think about different cooling solutions for internal hd's? Any recommendations?

[mdmint]

Those cages should work great. Nice touch having the temp indicator. I'm using similar fanned cages on the PVR Server I'm building except they're for SATA150 and hotswappable.

If the PVR is going to be in your AV room their are silent HD coolers using copper heatpipes. I've read a few reviews but haven't tried them myself.
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=92&CATID=1

Originally posted by insomniac
Im using 3 of these and am very happy with their looks and noise level (in low).

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...888-111&depa=0

My hard drives stay at 32c to 38c at all times. Extra security is worth it to me.

I.

[insomniac]

ono's!

I must warn you. In the past, I used 3 hot swapable bays from compusa, and in 2 weeks they fried 2 of 3 harddrives! Luckily, they were under warranty, and i was silent on what actually caused the problem. BE WARNED! it was clearly the hot swap bays (wish i could remember brand). If you do choose to use them, keep an ear out for clicking on your har harddrives. Thats tell tale signs of soon to be failure.

I highly suggest not taking this chance if you have the ability to return yours!

I.

Originally posted by mdmint
Those cages should work great. Nice touch having the temp indicator. I'm using similar fanned cages on the PVR Server I'm building except they're for SATA150 and hotswappable.

If the PVR is going to be in your AV room their are silent HD coolers using copper heatpipes. I've read a few reviews but haven't tried them myself.
http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showde..._ID=92&CATID=1

[mdmint]

Too bad you don't remember the brand, it'd be good to know what to stay away from. In the past I used some of those dual fan HD coolers that attached to the PCB side of the HD and had a similar experience to yours. Two out of three HDs fried in 2 months. I took off the fans and they've now been running over a year no problem. I believe the problem was with the fans used in the coolers spiking the HD's PCB, shared "y" power connectors as installation of coolers suggested. (my main non PVR system, 3 drive ATA100 Raid5)

I'm not going to be using some cheapo "clone" brand but Promise bays matched to Promise Fastrack 150 SX4 Raid controller w/256MB Kingston ECC cache.

Originally posted by insomniac
ono's!

I must warn you. In the past, I used 3 hot swapable bays from compusa, and in 2 weeks they fried 2 of 3 harddrives! Luckily, they were under warranty, and i was silent on what actually caused the problem. BE WARNED! it was clearly the hot swap bays (wish i could remember brand). If you do choose to use them, keep an ear out for clicking on your har harddrives. Thats tell tale signs of soon to be failure.

I highly suggest not taking this chance if you have the ability to return yours!

I.

[Crowdx42]

I always mount at least 1 80mm fan in the front of the case just in front of the drive bays, sometimes I install 2 fans, keeps air moving over the drives and a pretty cheap solution. If it is a client machine, I would think there is only one drive in it for the os and so this drive will not be worked too hard. The full servers need a lot of air movement, PVR 250s and 350s output a lot of heat and add then the heat of hard drives and soo you have an oven inside your case. An option if the server is in another room is to buy a small sheet of plexiglass and install fans on it where you need them and have this as the side for your case, blowing air on all heat producing components.
Patrick

[xlr8shun]

you do know that ide isnt hotswappable, so unless this cage has some kind of 'off switch' that that kills power, and disconnects it from the computer (as if it was off) then, its a wonder the drive didnt die in the first few swaps..


hotswappable ide bays i dont belive are meant to actually be "hotswappable" like you'd see with scsi drives. its a quick removal system, shutoff the computer, put in a new drive, turn it back on..

[mdmint]

Hotswap is in fact part of the SATA IDE protocol standards, one reason I went with them for my PVR Server. Plus they're faster of course. But you are correct for the earlier parallel IDE interface protocol standards not being hotswap.

Originally posted by xlr8shun
you do know that ide isnt hotswappable, so unless this cage has some kind of 'off switch' that that kills power, and disconnects it from the computer (as if it was off) then, its a wonder the drive didnt die in the first few swaps..


hotswappable ide bays i dont belive are meant to actually be "hotswappable" like you'd see with scsi drives. its a quick removal system, shutoff the computer, put in a new drive, turn it back on..

[xlr8shun]

yes, i didnt specify, pata is not hot swappable.

sata is, as stated, hot swappable.

[rrussell]

Insomniac -

I like the look of that cage; it'd fit nicely in one of the external 5.25" drive enclosures I've been adding drive space with.

HMMMM.....

[insomniac]

The hard drives were never removed. They just failed.

I.

Originally posted by xlr8shun
you do know that ide isnt hotswappable, so unless this cage has some kind of 'off switch' that that kills power, and disconnects it from the computer (as if it was off) then, its a wonder the drive didnt die in the first few swaps..


hotswappable ide bays i dont belive are meant to actually be "hotswappable" like you'd see with scsi drives. its a quick removal system, shutoff the computer, put in a new drive, turn it back on..

[insomniac]

They are very nice, and look good in all colors

I.

Originally posted by rrussell
Insomniac -

I like the look of that cage; it'd fit nicely in one of the external 5.25" drive enclosures I've been adding drive space with.

HMMMM.....

[gplasky]

You may also want to look at this review on Tom's Hardware:

SATA for servers-Testing Backplanes

Pretty good look at some options out there.

Gerry