Poor cooling HDD selection...

[ddrueding]

So in my new favorite PC (a quiet one for my bedroom) I currently have a 1st gen WD360GD "Raptor" hard drive. The chasis is an Antec P160 all-aluminiun with aluminium drive rails and locates them right near the front large vent opening. However, there are no case fans in this chassis at all; and I suspect the drive gets pretty warm.

Can I run a raptor reliably in these conditions? The other drive I can put in there is a Samsung 160GB w/8MB cache, but I don't want to loose the speed. Would this make a difference? Should I put in some type of air circulation, if not for the drive, for the 9800Pro/Zalman cooler (that runs about 150F all the time)? This system is so quiet and so fast, I'd love to just close it up and not worry; but that may be a bit optimistic.

 

[Buck]

Can I run a raptor reliably in these conditions?

Through experience, I would not recommend running the Raptor without active cooling. I won't say that it is not possible, but the results can be frustrating.

 

[Bozo]

You might want to look at the Antec fans that are temperature controlled. On a few cases I have used the Antec fan with the thermocouple attached to the hard drive, and the fan mounted on the back of the case. The fan runs just enough to keep things cool, but not fast enough to make a lot of noise. During heavy hard drive usage, the fan speeds up, but then returns to slow speed when finished.
One thing to keep in mind. The fans power connector can be attached to the motherboard. If the motherboard has any type of speed control, it needs to be disabled. If not, the fan will vibrate terribly causing all kinds of weird noises. I usually connect them to the power supply.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[ddrueding]

I actually did this swap the other day, and the HDD is running cool enough under standard load without any fans. Ambient at home is quite high (80F) and the HDD is currently @ 113F ... looks good enough to me.