Various Topics on HDD

..d ..e..

ANTant@zimage.com wrote:

>>>>> Are there any external HDDs that don't get hot easily?

>>>> Yes, there are a few.

>>> Which ones?

>> I havent bothered to keep track of them, just aware that some have
>> said that their fan cooled enclosure does work very well and keeps
>> the drive nice and cool. It aint rocket science, the problem appears
>> to be that far too many care more about appearance than keeping
>> the drive cool and dont bother with a decent fan etc.

>> Its harder to keep the drive cool without a fan, but it can be
>> done, particularly with the cooler running drives like Samsungs.

> How about one little fan on the bottom of the enclosure case in the back?

Some of them are close to entirely cosmetic, the fan doesnt do much.

> It doesn't seem to blow a lot of air out if it is on a table due
> to short height space between the table and case's fan vent.

You dont actually need much air volume to make a big difference.
Think of convection cooling which you cant even feel with a hard drive,
doing quite a bit better than that air movement wise is usually enough.

The fundamental problem with decent external housings is the
consumer expectation that they be nice and slim and petite
looking. It aint easy to get decent fan cooling with that, and
its not hard to see why the designers try to make it look good.

>> I also prefer the separate enclosure approach over the packaged
>> external drives, basically because none of the packaged drives
>> have more than a 1 year warranty and I prefer to retain the full
>> 3 or 5 year warranty that the drive itself has. Its usually
>> cheaper to buy a decent external housing separately too.

> Yeah, that is why I picked this Kingwin HDD Enclosure (MS-350U-S) HDD enclosure
> (http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.a...teID=27&ID=230 or
> http://tinyurl.com/ym3nb8 ).

Not too clear how long fans like that will last, or whether its getting any
air in thru the sides which may or may not be slotted for air to get in.

>>> Include enclosure types too.

>> Lot to be said for eSATA because that gives you the full speed
>> of an internal drive and the SMART stuff is trivial with those.

> Ah nice.

>> Not quite as convenient cabling wise, but thats not a big enough
>> consideration to matter IMO. And you can get some very decent
>> SATA port multipliers too so you can have multiple drives in a
>> decently fan cooled box and thats more mechanically convenient
>> too if you need more than one external drive.

> Nah, that wouldn't happen. I just needed it to carry
> around and mainly as a backup/archive place.

Laptop drives do that very well, more portable because
they are smaller and much less of a heat problem too.
Significantly more expensive $/GB tho.

>> I basically go the NAS route myself, gives even more flexibility.

> Heh. Probably too much for me.

It doesnt cost much if you use a discarded PC.

..Ta.. ..mage.c..

> > How about one little fan on the bottom of the enclosure case in the back?

> Some of them are close to entirely cosmetic, the fan doesnt do much.

Yeah, that's annoying. I don't really care about comestic as long as it
not pink or some crazy color and offensive.


> > It doesn't seem to blow a lot of air out if it is on a table due
> > to short height space between the table and case's fan vent.

> You dont actually need much air volume to make a big difference.
> Think of convection cooling which you cant even feel with a hard drive,
> doing quite a bit better than that air movement wise is usually enough.

Hmm, I wonder how well the airflow is in this Kingwin enclosure I have.
The metallic/aluminum case can get very warm. I don't think it gets hot
as Maxtor't case.


> The fundamental problem with decent external housings is the
> consumer expectation that they be nice and slim and petite
> looking. It aint easy to get decent fan cooling with that, and
> its not hard to see why the designers try to make it look good.

Yeah, both Maxtor and Kingwin's cases are pretty big to me, but probably
still have problems to cool down.


> >> I also prefer the separate enclosure approach over the packaged
> >> external drives, basically because none of the packaged drives
> >> have more than a 1 year warranty and I prefer to retain the full
> >> 3 or 5 year warranty that the drive itself has. Its usually
> >> cheaper to buy a decent external housing separately too.

> > Yeah, that is why I picked this Kingwin HDD Enclosure (MS-350U-S) HDD enclosure
> > (http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.a...teID=27&ID=230 or
> > http://tinyurl.com/ym3nb8 ).

> Not too clear how long fans like that will last, or whether its getting any
> air in thru the sides which may or may not be slotted for air to get in.

I don't see any vents on the sides. Only the fan vent. :I Not even sure
if the vent on the bottom is more effective than rear (e.g., Maxtor's).
I think it's worse because the table is blocking more room.
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..d ..e..

ANTant@zimage.com wrote:

>>> How about one little fan on the bottom of the enclosure case in the back?

>> Some of them are close to entirely cosmetic, the fan doesnt do much.

> Yeah, that's annoying.

Yeah, it annoys me too, tho its easy to see why they do it that way.

> I don't really care about comestic as long as
> it not pink or some crazy color and offensive.

Yeah, me too. Though I have avoided the colorful laptop bags etc.

>>> It doesn't seem to blow a lot of air out if it is on a table due
>>> to short height space between the table and case's fan vent.

>> You dont actually need much air volume to make a big difference.
>> Think of convection cooling which you cant even feel with a hard
>> drive, doing quite a bit better than that air movement wise is
>> usually enough.

> Hmm, I wonder how well the airflow is in this Kingwin enclosure I have.

Bugger all if the only vents in the case are where the fan itself is.

> The metallic/aluminum case can get very warm.

And that is the evidence that it hasnt been properly designed.

> I don't think it gets hot as Maxtor't case.

>> The fundamental problem with decent external housings is the
>> consumer expectation that they be nice and slim and petite
>> looking. It aint easy to get decent fan cooling with that, and
>> its not hard to see why the designers try to make it look good.

> Yeah, both Maxtor and Kingwin's cases are pretty big to me,

Yeah, that Kingwin is pretty crude appearance wise.

> but probably still have problems to cool down.

Yeah, in both cases **** all air is moved thru the case.

>>>> I also prefer the separate enclosure approach over the packaged
>>>> external drives, basically because none of the packaged drives
>>>> have more than a 1 year warranty and I prefer to retain the full
>>>> 3 or 5 year warranty that the drive itself has. Its usually
>>>> cheaper to buy a decent external housing separately too.

>>> Yeah, that is why I picked this Kingwin HDD Enclosure (MS-350U-S)
>>> HDD enclosure
>>> (http://www.kingwin.com/pdut_detail.a...teID=27&ID=230 or
>>> http://tinyurl.com/ym3nb8 ).

>> Not too clear how long fans like that will last, or whether its getting any
>> air in thru the sides which may or may not be slotted for air to get in.

> I don't see any vents on the sides. Only the fan vent. :I

Urk.

> Not even sure if the vent on the bottom is more effective than rear (e.g.,
> Maxtor's). I think it's worse because the table is blocking more room.

Bit academic if there is no place for the air to get in.