HD cooling question

[Tim Epstein]

Hi,

I'm hoping that someone can point me in the direction of a HD cooling
solution consisting of a heat sink/fan(s) that can be mounted directly onto
a 5 1/4 inch Hard Drive frame, preferably in the UK. I've done a lot of
searching, but can't find anything. Price is no problems - I'm prepared to
spend up to £100 (US$180) if I have to, but hope to find a solution far more
inexpensive.

I have 3 x Seagate Cheetah 15,000 RPM SCSCI drives, mounted vertically
together in a 5 1/4 inch frame that provides a hot-swappable backplane.
These 15K RPM drives run notoriously hot, but mounted together verticially,
they are an even bigger problem and regularly fail. I would instantly burn
my finger if I touched any part of the drive bay whilst the computer was
switched on.

I have a spare 5/14 inch slot available above the the drive frame (the top
of which is solid metal) and hope to find a solution that can sit in this
slot and draw heat away from the drive frame.

Any help much appreciated.

Regards,
Tim

 

[kony]

Hi,

I'm hoping that someone can point me in the direction of a HD cooling
solution consisting of a heat sink/fan(s) that can be mounted directly onto
a 5 1/4 inch Hard Drive frame,

It will be hard to find any because it's not needed. "Not"
as-in, no matter what.

Even if you had extreme temps, the entire metal body of the
HDD will be relatively fine given ample airflow, relative to
the surface-mount components on the PCB. Even then, only
extremely hostile environments should need more than a low
RPM fan unless the particular drive has a specific design
problem, in which case the prudent move is to replace the
drive.


preferably in the UK. I've done a lot of

searching, but can't find anything. Price is no problems - I'm prepared to
spend up to £100 (US$180) if I have to, but hope to find a solution far more
inexpensive.

That seems incredibly excessive, but for $180 I'll bet you
can find someone to whittle you one by hand, literally.

You could of course DIY, and it may be necessary since
attaching things to the outside of a HDD may require
system-specific consideration of the available space, in
addition to the issue I mentioned above, that if it's REALLY
needed (which I still question without further detail of
why) you will need 'sink some PCB components too. If this
is a mission critical HDD, you may even need use a laser
thermometer to gauge effectiveness of specific parts and
compare to chip spec sheets, else fudge a little for a
saftey margin that would be expected to cover any/all of
them.

I have 3 x Seagate Cheetah 15,000 RPM SCSCI drives, mounted vertically
together in a 5 1/4 inch frame that provides a hot-swappable backplane.
These 15K RPM drives run notoriously hot, but mounted together verticially,
they are an even bigger problem and regularly fail. I would instantly burn
my finger if I touched any part of the drive bay whilst the computer was
switched on.

Then where will you put the heatsinks? Given ample room
around a 'sink for flow, they're a good idea. Given minimal
space, they impede airflow. Does the solution need be quiet
(at all, or even relatively) ?

The generic solution would be a forced intake fan in front
of them, not one of those silly unreliable bay-coolers but a
single fan with a custom-sized frame to mount it across the
width and height of the rack.

I have a spare 5/14 inch slot available above the the drive frame (the top
of which is solid metal) and hope to find a solution that can sit in this
slot and draw heat away from the drive frame.

Any help much appreciated.

If we had a better idea (good pictures) it might be easier
to advise on specific steps. Generally speaking, the above
suggestion should work, you could simply take some sheet
aluminum to fab the mounting plate then cut out the hole for
the fan. I'd expect at least 92mm diameter fan to fit,
maybe 120mm- though if the fan is slightly oversized that
can still work too. It is often necessary to have a sturdy
(like the typical chrome wire type) grill on a large
front-mounted fan, for the reasons we can't forsee as well
as those we might.


If noise isn't an issue you could even use a fan so horribly
strong that it ends up cooling almost the entire system- but
then such massive airflow also increases dust accumulation
(depending on environment) so the service interval needs be
considered too. It's still an issue with heatisnks though,
but even more difficult to disassemble the array and clean
out sinks which inevitably trap a lot of dust and are harder
to get clean if you are trying to get near 100% of dust
removed rather than an acceptible majority of it.

Zalman makes some HDD 'sink coolers, but they don't seem any
more effective than a fan alone, and take up a lot of
space... I dont' think they'd fit in the rack you describe
but again good pictures might help (posted to a server and
linked rather than posted to the newsgroup).

 

[Guest]

HD cooling solution consisting of a heat sink/fan(s) that can
be mounted directly onto a 5 1/4 inch Hard Drive frame,

I have 3 x Seagate Cheetah 15,000 RPM SCSCI drives, mounted
vertically together in a 5 1/4 inch frame that provides a
hot-swappable backplane. These 15K RPM drives run notoriously
hot, but mounted together verticially, they are an even bigger
problem and regularly fail.

Vertical mounting doesn't cause heat problems but can actually reduce
them through gravity convection cooling. However I'd want any 15K RPM
drives to be cooled with a fan blowing from the front. I'd also want
at least 1cm of air space between each drive, but that can be a problem
with a hot-swappable backplane.

 

[JANA]

Mount your hard disks in a well ventilated case, where there is room to
install some fans to blow air on them. This should not be too difficult a
task, and not be excessively expensive.

If you want to get very fancy, there are some industrial electronic
thermometers with external probes. You can mount a probe inside of the case,
and mount the readout unit on the side of the case, or where convenient.
This way, you will have a simple reading of the temperature.

--

JANA
_____


Hi,

I'm hoping that someone can point me in the direction of a HD cooling
solution consisting of a heat sink/fan(s) that can be mounted directly onto
a 5 1/4 inch Hard Drive frame, preferably in the UK. I've done a lot of
searching, but can't find anything. Price is no problems - I'm prepared to
spend up to £100 (US$180) if I have to, but hope to find a solution far more
inexpensive.

I have 3 x Seagate Cheetah 15,000 RPM SCSCI drives, mounted vertically
together in a 5 1/4 inch frame that provides a hot-swappable backplane.
These 15K RPM drives run notoriously hot, but mounted together verticially,
they are an even bigger problem and regularly fail. I would instantly burn
my finger if I touched any part of the drive bay whilst the computer was
switched on.

I have a spare 5/14 inch slot available above the the drive frame (the top
of which is solid metal) and hope to find a solution that can sit in this
slot and draw heat away from the drive frame.

Any help much appreciated.

Regards,
Tim

 

[Tim Epstein]

Thanks for your tip, however the frame they mount in with the backplane
means that they are mounted hard up against each other. The drives can't
have a fan at the front, as they are hot swappable, and thus must be mounted
to have their grab handles for removal at the front.

Back to the drawing board :-(

Tim

 

[Tim Epstein]

Firstly, thanks very much for your comprehensive reply - much appreciated

It will be hard to find any because it's not needed. "Not"
as-in, no matter what.

Even if you had extreme temps, the entire metal body of the
HDD will be relatively fine given ample airflow, relative to
the surface-mount components on the PCB. Even then, only
extremely hostile environments should need more than a low
RPM fan unless the particular drive has a specific design
problem, in which case the prudent move is to replace the
drive.

I beg to disagree, as I have strong evidence to say otherwise. My system
utilises an Adaptec SCSI RAID controller that is compatibile with the
temperature probe built into the Seagate SCSI drives. At one stage I was
getting a hard drive being failed due to excess heat every few weeks (or
guaranteed if I did a full defrag of all the drives). The overheat events
were recorded in the Adaptec SCSI utilities. Luckily my RAID redudancy saved
the day each time, and I was able to reset and rebuild the "failed" drives
once they cooled down. However, after having 2 heat related failures in one
day, I realised that I was at risk of data loss from losing a 2nd drive
during a RAID rebuild.

Anyway, as an interim measure I utilised a P4 heatsink/fan on top of the HD
frame, and this significantly reduced the heat and stopped the failures
completely. However, yesterday I rebuilt my system into a new aluminium
case, which only has a single spare drive bay - not enough room to sit a p4
fan & heatsink. As part of my upgrade, I am looking for a more permanent and
appropriate HD cooling solution.

preferably in the UK. I've done a lot of

That seems incredibly excessive, but for $180 I'll bet you
can find someone to whittle you one by hand, literally.

If need be, I'll take that option!

Then where will you put the heatsinks? Given ample room
around a 'sink for flow, they're a good idea. Given minimal
space, they impede airflow. Does the solution need be quiet
(at all, or even relatively) ?

I have left a 5/14 bay free above the HD frame. The top of the frame is flat
metal, so is ideal for mounting a heatsink to.

The solution doesn't need to be quiet, as these 15K HDs are notoriously
noisy - the drives completely overwhelm any fan noise.

The generic solution would be a forced intake fan in front
of them, not one of those silly unreliable bay-coolers but a
single fan with a custom-sized frame to mount it across the
width and height of the rack.

Being hot swappable, the HD frame has grab handles at the front of each
drive - so nothing can be mounted in front. The frame *does" have a small
fan mounted vertically inside that pushes air through all the HDs, but its
simply not up to the job of removing the heat load generated.

If we had a better idea (good pictures) it might be easier
to advise on specific steps.

Can you advise a suitable binary group that I can upload a photo to?

Thanks again for all your help!!!

Tim

 

[Tim Epstein]

Here's a photo of my drives mounted in my new case:

http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img16980ve.jpg

The 3 SCSI drives are at the bottom of photo, and you can see that I have
left a blank slot between the HDs and the DVDs. I'm hoping to utilise that
blank slot to mount a heatsink/fan combo to draw the excess heat off the top
of the drive frame.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[kony]

Firstly, thanks very much for your comprehensive reply - much appreciated




I beg to disagree, as I have strong evidence to say otherwise. My system
utilises an Adaptec SCSI RAID controller that is compatibile with the
temperature probe built into the Seagate SCSI drives. At one stage I was
getting a hard drive being failed due to excess heat every few weeks (or
guaranteed if I did a full defrag of all the drives). The overheat events
were recorded in the Adaptec SCSI utilities. Luckily my RAID redudancy saved
the day each time, and I was able to reset and rebuild the "failed" drives
once they cooled down. However, after having 2 heat related failures in one
day, I realised that I was at risk of data loss from losing a 2nd drive
during a RAID rebuild.

So your drives were hot. That is not evidence you need
heatsinks on them. Show us servers that have these 'sinks?
Unnecessary.

Anyway, as an interim measure I utilised a P4 heatsink/fan on top of the HD
frame, and this significantly reduced the heat and stopped the failures
completely. However, yesterday I rebuilt my system into a new aluminium
case, which only has a single spare drive bay - not enough room to sit a p4
fan & heatsink. As part of my upgrade, I am looking for a more permanent and
appropriate HD cooling solution.

You're going about it all wrong. Don't try to just blow
against the side of a drive. Use the front intake air to
push or pull fresh / cool air through the rack. "Usually"
pushing is easier unless the chassis has a design that
accomodates a large partition/bracket that holds a row of
fans. If yours did you'd already know it.

If need be, I'll take that option!

Did you consider air-conditioning the room, or turning up
the AC some?

I still don't think that's necessary though, merely that
you need a front pusher fan as already described.

I have left a 5/14 bay free above the HD frame. The top of the frame is flat
metal, so is ideal for mounting a heatsink to.

One bay? What about the other drives?
How do you plan on thermally connecting this 'sink to the
drive? Heatsink compound is bound to void your warranty,
which I'd expect you want to preserve given you have drives
dropping like flies.

The solution doesn't need to be quiet, as these 15K HDs are notoriously
noisy - the drives completely overwhelm any fan noise.


Being hot swappable, the HD frame has grab handles at the front of each
drive - so nothing can be mounted in front.

I doubt that's true. Given some cutting, the properly
shaped piece of metal and 4 screws, it's amazing what can be
accomplished. Perhaps I"m wrong but without any pictures
it's hard to know _exactly_ what you're up against.

The frame *does" have a small
fan mounted vertically inside that pushes air through all the HDs, but its
simply not up to the job of removing the heat load generated.

What about intake area? Is that fan's intake isolated such
that it only draws in outside air or does it recirculate
internal chassis air? Important difference.

Can you advise a suitable binary group that I can upload a photo to?

Thanks again for all your help!!!

Surely you have access to some storage space somewhere. I
meant to any traditional server, or perhaps a home ISP
account with "webpage" storage, or there are several online
picture posting 'sites. I don't know which of the latter is
the best, but Googling "free picture storage" or something
similar should find you some alternatives.

 

[Tim Epstein]

Surely you have access to some storage space somewhere. I
meant to any traditional server, or perhaps a home ISP
account with "webpage" storage, or there are several online
picture posting 'sites. I don't know which of the latter is
the best, but Googling "free picture storage" or something
similar should find you some alternatives.

Here's a photo of my drives mounted in my new case:

http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img16980ve.jpg

The 3 SCSI drives are at the bottom of photo, and you can see that I have
left a blank slot between the HDs and the DVDs. I'm hoping to utilise that
blank slot to mount a heatsink/fan combo to draw the excess heat off the top
of the drive frame.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[kony]

Here's a photo of my drives mounted in my new case:

http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img16980ve.jpg

The 3 SCSI drives are at the bottom of photo, and you can see that I have
left a blank slot between the HDs and the DVDs. I'm hoping to utilise that
blank slot to mount a heatsink/fan combo to draw the excess heat off the top
of the drive frame.

The rack is simily ill-suited to, inappropriate for the
drives. I was under the impression that the drives were in
5 1/4" bays, which would've also allowed more intake through
the rack and more space inbetween each drive.

You could try to modify it. By taking off the handles and
installing only studs on each side (of each bay) you would
still have a way to grasp it to pull a drive. By removing
the center portion of the handles you could then mount a fan
frame across the whole thing, held down in the 4 corners by
two studs on the top and bottom rack, If quick removal is
an issue then the studs could have wing-nuts rather than
regular.

It would also help a lot to cut out the stamped-in
perforated areas as much as structurally-prudent. That
might mean doing somthing like making a cutout over the
center but leaving one row at the top and bottom of
perforated area, then folding that horizontal flap
backwards/inside to overlap the solid top and bottom
portions. Even so, it would still be less effective than
doing similar kinds of modification to a full 5 1/4" bay
mount. A crude sketch of what I meant,

http://69.36.189.159/usr_1034/bayfan.jpg

 

[kony]

Vertical mounting doesn't cause heat problems but can actually reduce
them through gravity convection cooling.

They aren't vertically mounted though, unless the case is
lying on it's side. The mouting (itself) may be a vertical
plane but what we traditionally consider vertical is a drive
sitting with it's longer side at right-angle to the ground,
while the picture shows horizontal orientation.

 

[Tim Epstein]

The rack is simily ill-suited to, inappropriate for the
drives. I was under the impression that the drives were in
5 1/4" bays, which would've also allowed more intake through
the rack and more space inbetween each drive.

You could try to modify it. By taking off the handles and
installing only studs on each side (of each bay) you would
still have a way to grasp it to pull a drive. By removing
the center portion of the handles you could then mount a fan
frame across the whole thing, held down in the 4 corners by
two studs on the top and bottom rack, If quick removal is
an issue then the studs could have wing-nuts rather than
regular.

It would also help a lot to cut out the stamped-in
perforated areas as much as structurally-prudent. That
might mean doing somthing like making a cutout over the
center but leaving one row at the top and bottom of
perforated area, then folding that horizontal flap
backwards/inside to overlap the solid top and bottom
portions. Even so, it would still be less effective than
doing similar kinds of modification to a full 5 1/4" bay
mount. A crude sketch of what I meant,

http://69.36.189.159/usr_1034/bayfan.jpg

nice bit of perspective drawing

That makes a lot of sense - get rid of the handles and mount a fan across
the 3 bays.

However, you've helped me think outside the square a bit when you mentioned
that in your opinion the drive frame was ill designed. It makes me wonder
whether it might be just as cost-effective to remove the drives completely
from the frame and buy a better designed hot-swap frame.

I'll take up your suggestion of a fan across the front for the moment and
see how it works out.

Thanks again,
Tim

 

[jedworks]

I see a number of complicated replys here, ok I guess I'll add mine for
what its worth. I had a similar issue with 2 scsi drives on a video
editor.

http://www.frozencpu.com/

check out the folks at Frozen CPU, they got lots of ideas for heat
problems.

Good luck.

Ed

 

[Jon Danniken]

Here's a photo of my drives mounted in my new case:

http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img16980ve.jpg

The 3 SCSI drives are at the bottom of photo, and you can see that I have
left a blank slot between the HDs and the DVDs. I'm hoping to utilise that
blank slot to mount a heatsink/fan combo to draw the excess heat off the top
of the drive frame.

I have my HDD's (albeit only two) mounted in a similar location (in the 3.5"
"floppy" bay). What I did was to move the HDD's back, farther into the
case, by drilling different mounting holes (designed to allow an even space
between each drive and the 3.5" bay). This left me an inch and half of
space between the front of the case and the drives, in which I mounted an
80cm fan to blow air into the case, over the drives.

Even still, your drives are mounted too close to each other; if I were you,
I would only mount two in the 3.5" bay, in a way which allows an even air
space around each drive (likely have to drill your own holes), and put the
third one up in the 5.25" bay you have left empty. Install a fan in front
of both bays and you'll be set.

Note: if you drill new holes in the mounting box, remove existing components
from the case first, and ensure all loose metal is removed prior to
reinstallation. s

Jon

 

[M]

My solution to this problem was to mount a 120mm Vantec Stealth case fan
(very quiet) beneath the hard drive with cable ties. Cheap and effective!