Underside hard drive coolers bad for hard drives

[Frustrated]

Now....I just remembered something. A while ago, I had a problem with
my WD hard drive. I sent in for RMA. No problem with that.

Now, I have to also send in my Seagate HD as well due to many allocated
bad sectors.

What seems to be the common link between these two drives is that I used
a cheap hard drive cooler, the one you fit on the underside of a hard
drive.

Could it be possible that the cooler is causing vibration issues and
this is causing the hard drive to exhibit problems over time?

 

[Rod Speed]

Now....I just remembered something. A while ago, I had a problem
with my WD hard drive. I sent in for RMA. No problem with that.

Now, I have to also send in my Seagate HD as well due to many
allocated bad sectors.

What seems to be the common link between these two drives is that I used
a cheap hard drive cooler, the one you fit on the underside of a hard drive.

Could it be possible that the cooler is causing vibration issues
and this is causing the hard drive to exhibit problems over time?

No, that shouldnt produce reallocated sectors.

It might well have been the problem with the seek error rate and the Hardware ECC Recovered.

 

[Arno]

Now....I just remembered something. A while ago, I had a problem with
my WD hard drive. I sent in for RMA. No problem with that.

Now, I have to also send in my Seagate HD as well due to many allocated
bad sectors.

What seems to be the common link between these two drives is that I used
a cheap hard drive cooler, the one you fit on the underside of a hard
drive.

Could it be possible that the cooler is causing vibration issues and
this is causing the hard drive to exhibit problems over time?

Possible. Another common link would be the PSU.
Rough handling can cause the same problem.

Arno

 

[Man-wai Chang to The Door (+MS=32B)]

Could it be possible that the cooler is causing vibration issues and

this is causing the hard drive to exhibit problems over time?

The circuit broad of hard disks is always on the under-side.
I think you should cool the upper side....

--
@~@ Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Ubuntu 9.04) Linux 2.6.30
^ ^ 19:17:01 up 2:56 0 users load average: 1.10 1.29 2.29
ä¸å€Ÿè²¸! ä¸è©é¨™! ä¸æ´äº¤! ä¸æ‰“交! ä¸æ‰“劫! ä¸è‡ªæ®º! è«‹è€ƒæ…®ç¶œæ´ (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa

 

[Arno]

The circuit broad of hard disks is always on the under-side.
I think you should cool the upper side....

Actually you should cool the underside because the board is there.
Also the underside typically exposes part of the aluminum body,
whilc the top side does not.

Arno

 

[Man-wai Chang to The Door (+MS=32B)]

Actually you should cool the underside because the board is there.

Also the underside typically exposes part of the aluminum body,
whilc the top side does not.

Thanks. But doing so would blow dust directly over the circuit board.
Also, some hard disks have a slid under the disk to protect their
circuit boards.

--
@~@ Might, Courage, Vision, SINCERITY.
/ v \ Simplicity is Beauty! May the Force and Farce be with you!
/( _ )\ (Ubuntu 9.04) Linux 2.6.30
^ ^ 10:08:01 up 1 day 17:47 1 user load average: 5.33 4.76 3.12
ä¸å€Ÿè²¸! ä¸è©é¨™! ä¸æ´äº¤! ä¸æ‰“交! ä¸æ‰“劫! ä¸è‡ªæ®º! è«‹è€ƒæ…®ç¶œæ´ (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa

 

[Arno]

Thanks. But doing so would blow dust directly over the circuit board.

The dus does only matter insofar as it creates thermal insulation.
That is why you should clean your computer occasionally.

Also, some hard disks have a slid under the disk to protect their
circuit boards.

Historically, yes. I have not seen any of these for quite a while.

Arno

 

[the world according to me]

The circuit broad of hard disks is always on the under-side.
I think you should cool the upper side....

If your pC has good air circulation you don't need any dedicated cooling
for the HDDs at all. I've never used them and have never had issues with
heat and HDDs either. I have 3 HDDs in my main PC and heat is just not
a problem because that PC has good air circulation. People with loads of
fans in their cases are just attacking the issue from the wrong angle
and is overkill.

First thing to do when getting a new case is get one with good
ventilation on the front, next cut out those stupid exhaust mesh grills
on the back of the case. Those impede air flow greatly and cause noise
due to turbulence. Do those two things when getting a new case and heat
will not be an issue. Problem with many of today's cases on the market
is that they have stupid doors on the front so there is no ventilation.
Doors are just a bad idea all around. Who wants to have to open a door
every time you want to change the cd in the drive? Not me, I avoid cases
with doors like the plague.

 

[the world according to me]

Actually you should cool the underside because the board is there.
Also the underside typically exposes part of the aluminum body,
whilc the top side does not.

Arno

Disagree. No dedicated fans for the HDDs are needed. See my previous
post as to why. I'm a gamer so my PC gets a good workout and have never
used dedicated HDD coolers and have never had issues with heat on the HDDs.

 

[Eric Gisin]

Disagree. No dedicated fans for the HDDs are needed. See my previous post as to why. I'm a gamer
so my PC gets a good workout and have never used dedicated HDD coolers and have never had issues
with heat on the HDDs.

Agreed. I've been using 10/15K SCSI drives for 8 years, leaving space above/below them. My only
extra fan is a 120mm exhaust.

 

[Arno]

Arno wrote:

Disagree. No dedicated fans for the HDDs are needed. See my previous
post as to why. I'm a gamer so my PC gets a good workout and have never
used dedicated HDD coolers and have never had issues with heat on the HDDs.

The discussion was about what to cool if you cool, not whether
cooling is needed.

Arno

 

[Arno]

Man-wai Chang to The Door (+MS=32B) wrote:

If your pC has good air circulation you don't need any dedicated cooling
for the HDDs at all. I've never used them and have never had issues with
heat and HDDs either. I have 3 HDDs in my main PC and heat is just not
a problem because that PC has good air circulation. People with loads of
fans in their cases are just attacking the issue from the wrong angle
and is overkill.

I think the problem is that many PCs do not have good airflow.
Direct cooling of the disk is a stopgap in these cases. I also
have a disk with noise insulation, which would die very fast
without a fan. This is a decidedly non-standard situation though.

First thing to do when getting a new case is get one with good
ventilation on the front, next cut out those stupid exhaust mesh grills
on the back of the case.

I couldn't agree more. I have a very old case that went from constant
overheating to reasonable airflow with this.

Those impede air flow greatly and cause noise
due to turbulence. Do those two things when getting a new case and heat
will not be an issue. Problem with many of today's cases on the market
is that they have stupid doors on the front so there is no ventilation.
Doors are just a bad idea all around. Who wants to have to open a door
every time you want to change the cd in the drive? Not me, I avoid cases
with doors like the plague.

I guess this is a case of form over function. But if you
are lucky the door is bad enough that it falls off after a while
anyways.

Arno

 

[Fred]

The discussion was about what to cool if you cool, not whether
cooling is needed.

And he commented on whether extra cooling is needed at all.

He's right, it normally isnt.

 

[DevilsPGD]

The discussion was about what to cool if you cool, not whether
cooling is needed.

If cooling isn't needed at all then it doesn't matter what you cool.

 

[Fred]

I think the problem is that many PCs do not have good airflow.

Most dont need that because they only have one hard drive
and the airflow they do have is adequate in that situation.

Direct cooling of the disk is a stopgap in these cases.

Only necessary if you have more than one hard drive and not
always even then if you can have a spare slot between drives.

 

[Eric Gisin]

If cooling isn't needed at all then it doesn't matter what you cool.

You still are cooling by case airflow, so you need free space top and bottom.

 

[Rod Speed]

Eric Gisin wrote

You still are cooling by case airflow,

Not necessarily, some of us dont bother to put the cover on our cases.

so you need free space top and bottom.

Not necessarily either, depends on whether you allow unused drives to spin down or not.

 

[Jed Clampett]

You still are cooling by case airflow, so you need free space top and
bottom.

Yes, I never put 2 HDDs right next to each other for that reason.