Is HDD fan deeded?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Talal Itani
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Talal Itani

Hello,

I plan on adding a second drive to my PC (200 GB Western Digital, EIDE). Do
I need a HDD fan? My current drive is a 75 GB Western Digital and it has
fan attached to it. Thank you very much.

Best Regards,
Talal Itani
 
I plan on adding a second drive to my PC (200 GB
Western Digital, EIDE). Do I need a HDD fan?
Click to expand...

Probably not, but it depends on the case detail and
the environment its used in. If you mount two of those
drives in the 3.5" drive bay stack, and mount them
in adjacent bays, in a case which has poor airflow over
the 3.5" bay stack, and the room temperature gets
high on the hottest days in summer, it can get a bit hot.

At the other extreme, if the drives have a spare
drive slot between them and there is already decent
airflow over the hard drives, they should be fine.
My current drive is a 75 GB Western
Digital and it has fan attached to it.
Click to expand...

Do you mean that the drive is in a hard drive bay
cooler kit in the 5.25" drive bay stack or what ?
 
Talal said:
Hello,

I plan on adding a second drive to my PC (200 GB Western Digital, EIDE). Do
I need a HDD fan? My current drive is a 75 GB Western Digital and it has
fan attached to it. Thank you very much.
Click to expand...


Run DTemp to keep an eye on the temperature. If it goes over 45C you
may want to look into additional cooling. The higher the temp is, the
shorter the lifespan of the drive.


-WD
 
Will Dormann said:
Talal Itani wrote
Click to expand...
Run DTemp to keep an eye on the temperature.
Click to expand...

Wont work with WD drives, they dont have a SMART temperature sensor.

One of the main downsides with WD drives.
If it goes over 45C you may want to look into additional cooling.
The higher the temp is, the shorter the lifespan of the drive.
Click to expand...

Only with the higher temps. You dont
get that effect with say 25C and 30C
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.misc Talal Itani said:
Hello,
Click to expand...
I plan on adding a second drive to my PC (200 GB Western Digital, EIDE). Do
I need a HDD fan? My current drive is a 75 GB Western Digital and it has
fan attached to it. Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

If the drive is used sparingly, you may be o.k. without.
If the drive can get under heavy load, it depends. From
my experience some drives get very hot without individual
fan (new Maxtors for example), while others stay relatively
cool.

If there are not strong reasons not to get a fan, get one
and be on the save side.

Arno
 
Talal Itani said:
I plan on adding a second drive to my PC (200 GB Western Digital, EIDE). Do
I need a HDD fan? My current drive is a 75 GB Western Digital and it has
fan attached to it. Thank you very much.
Click to expand...

do something to keep the drives spinning for an extended period (copying the
complete contents of hte 75 to 200 would work) and see if the drive cage
area gets warm to the touch. if so you need a fan.
 
do something to keep the drives spinning for an extended period (copying the
complete contents of hte 75 to 200 would work) and see if the drive cage
area gets warm to the touch. if so you need a fan.
Click to expand...

That will not help. Some drives (Maxtor) stay cool when
spinning but unused. When seeking a lot (kernel compile),
they get very hot.

Arno
 
You really can't tell without adding the disk and them measuring.

There are two easy ways to do this; Radio Shack sells a small cheap
digital thermometer with the sensor at the end of a long insulated
wire. You could snake the sensor inside the case and measure
temperature at specific points in the system.

Or, you could get a little sensor/alarm for about $10US. It's set to
go off at 110DegF or higher, which is a safe temperature for
any disk I've seen. Leave it in the case and it will protect
you against fan failure.

http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/products/alarmandaccesories/alert/

If the termometer exceeds 110DegF on the disk shell, or the alarm goes
off you need to fix or add a fan, blow out dust, or something.
 
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