A serious/unorthodox approach to hard drive cooling

In article 408457B7.4714.587220@localhost,
says...
Bear with me as this is just an off the wall idea I had while scrounging in my
basement for old parts. I noticed a bunch of old heat sinks from various processors
and it occurred to me, why not sit a few of them on top of a hard drive? Would there
be any risk in doing so? I was worried maybe uneven cooling might put
thermodynamic stress on opposite ends of the drive or an issue of that nature.
What are your thoughts?


They do sell such a thing, but it doesn't look like
that. Look for heat pipes that wrap around the hard-
drive (usually mounts a single 3.5" HD in a 5.25" bay).

Personally, I prefer to just have an intelligent case
layout like the Antec p160/Sonata where I can blow a
120mm fan over the 4 drive bays (which are also spaced
apart so the drives aren't in there like a can of
sardines).

A long time ago, I found a HD cooling fan setup that
would let you pack 2 or 3 3.5" drives into a pair of
5.25" bays. The nice part was that the fan on the front
of the cooling unit was 80mm (since it took up 2 5.25"
bays). An 80mm fan is extremely quiet when compared to
the normal 40mm HD cooling fans. Sadly, Dirt Cheap
Drives no longer carries the WIN-7500, and I haven't
found anyone who carries them online.

Here's what the item looked like:
http://www.imashape.com/win-7500.htm

wrote in message news:408457B7.4714.587220@localhost...
Bear with me as this is just an off the wall idea I had while scrounging
in my
basement for old parts. I noticed a bunch of old heat sinks from various
processors
and it occurred to me, why not sit a few of them on top of a hard drive?
Would there
be any risk in doing so? I was worried maybe uneven cooling might put
thermodynamic stress on opposite ends of the drive or an issue of that
nature.
What are your thoughts?

I have a feeling that the aluminum body of the hard drive is what you'd want
to attach
a heatsink to which means the SIDES of the hard drive rather than the steel
cover.
The cover probably has a non-conductive sealer between it and the body which
further
isolates it.

T

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 22:50:31 -0400, wrote:

Bear with me as this is just an off the wall idea I had while scrounging in my
basement for old parts. I noticed a bunch of old heat sinks from various processors
and it occurred to me, why not sit a few of them on top of a hard drive? Would there
be any risk in doing so? I was worried maybe uneven cooling might put
thermodynamic stress on opposite ends of the drive or an issue of that nature.
What are your thoughts?

Others will mention the alternatives. I will mention that adding the
heatsinks may actually result in higher temp due to blocking more air
passage around the drive. The steady, unobstructed flow of air under the
drive is the most effective method of cooling it. No special attachments
with fans (instead of a fan in front of the drive bay) or heatpipe is
needed.

kony wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 22:50:31 -0400, wrote:

Bear with me as this is just an off the wall idea I had while scrounging in my
basement for old parts. I noticed a bunch of old heat sinks from various processors
and it occurred to me, why not sit a few of them on top of a hard drive? Would there
be any risk in doing so? I was worried maybe uneven cooling might put
thermodynamic stress on opposite ends of the drive or an issue of that nature.
What are your thoughts?

Others will mention the alternatives. I will mention that adding the
heatsinks may actually result in higher temp due to blocking more air
passage around the drive. The steady, unobstructed flow of air under the
drive is the most effective method of cooling it. No special attachments
with fans (instead of a fan in front of the drive bay) or heatpipe is
needed.


Real neat place called www.frozencpu.com
just a myriad of cooling needs.

Ed