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Best disk for hot places?

U

unhappy_mage

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - October 2005
Joined
Jun 29, 2004
Messages
11,455
Hi everyone,
I'm going to have to build a DVR box in the near future. It has to stay inside a metal box up near the ceiling, and I'm worried about the heat killing everything off. The metal box is ventilated, but only by a single slow 120mm filtered fan. The current system was just off-the-shelf, and appears to have died of heatstroke. Any suggestions for a relatively cheap (call it under $150), relatively small (only needs ~20gb) drive that can take the heat?

PS: Yeah, Maxtor's out ;)
 
You can pick up a SCSI drive off of e-bay for cheap. They're meant to run 24/7 and in higher heat environments than typical desktop drives. Get a low-profile scsi card to drive it and you're in business. Just my $.02.
 
PrkChpXprss said:
You can pick up a SCSI drive off of e-bay for cheap. They're meant to run 24/7 and in higher heat environments than typical desktop drives. Get a low-profile scsi card to drive it and you're in business. Just my $.02.
Click to expand...
:confused:
Why would you buy a drive that runs hotter and louder? SCSI drives have to be built to withstand more to prevent cooking themselves to death!

Since he's got only a single fan in the box, it's obvious that noise is a primary concern. The samsung spinpoint series is known for being quiet and cool.
 
Most smaller drives like that are going to be used. You're better of redisigning the cooling of the box to make it quieter and more efficient than trying to find hardware that will run in the current environment.
 
I seccond the vote for the samsung spinpoint ... nice, silent cool drives (why add heat to a system where your worried about heat ...)

Most drives have a heat tollerance up to 55C which if you case is sitting somewhere that it gets that hot ... you have other issues :p
 
iirc the hitachi endurastar is supposed to be an extreme temperature/shock friendly drive. no idea on the pricing structure though...
 
Vertigo Acid said:
Since he's got only a single fan in the box, it's obvious that noise is a primary concern. The samsung spinpoint series is known for being quiet and cool.
Click to expand...
Noise isn't really much of a concern, the only reason it has only one fan is because that's how it came from the factory. Also, to clarify, the machine is in a case, and the case is in the box. And the green grass grows all around, all around. And the green grass grows all around.

Samsung spinpoint sounds good. I was thinking about scsi, but like someone said, why put in a drive that needs protection against cooking itself.

What about laptop versus 3.5"? Laptop drives seem like they'd be a better choice, but I'd like to hear user input. ZZF doesn't seem to carry sata 2.5" drives; is it okay to get this from NE, given the higher shock resistance of the small drives? I do know I need sata for better cooling; the cabling in the last system was a terrible mess.

 
Last question: does anyone know of a hard drive cooler that'll take a 2.5" disk? Black is good for the color, and the more bling the better. Customers like bling.

Also, does anyone have one of these? Vantec, takes 3.5" drives. If they screw to the sides, I don't mind drilling extra holes or whatever it takes to mount a 2.5" drive.

 
2.5" if you can afford it and don't need killer capacity. The idle dissipation between 2.5" and 3.5" drives isn't even close. It's around 1 watt for a 2.5" drive, at least 5 for a 3.5" drive. 2.5" drives stay under 5 watts, even during full bore seeks, while all but the most conservative 3.5" drives are over 10.

As for thermal tolerances, I think that most any 2.5" drive would be ok. Don't really see the need for an automotive drive unless ambient conditions are extreme.

ZZF carries SATA mobile drives - try searching for "Serial Travelstar"
 
Thanks for the response.

I'm planning on using a 2.5" drive. But I don't have a good way of mounting it in a standard case or a drive cooler (this is the case I'm using), so I could use advice on that - just bolt it to one side of the case? Newegg doesn't seem to have any 2.5 to 3.5 conversion brackets.

Is it safe to order laptop drives from Newegg? ZZF has the one I want on back order, but if it's going to be a problem to get it from Newegg I'll wait.

 
With non-op shock resistance of 800G/2ms or more, a mobile drive from the Egg should be fine.
 
Why not address the issue of heat as well as replacing the drive? If you keep it hot, you are going to keep losing drives they are not meant to run at high temperatures for extended periods of time.
 
Thanks for the confirmation on the laptop drive from NE; I thought I had heard that somewhere, but I'd rather be *sure*.

I'm doing my best to get low-power-draw equipment, and I'll see if I can talk them into making another hole in the box for ventilation. Here's my current wishlist at Newegg. Mostly I'm trying to get stuff that can run without a fan (p-m, sata drive) and then put fans on it.

It's not all *that* hot, either; the last drive was a 20gb WD that's still (I think) working - it spins up, anyways. It is more or less outdoors (covered from snow/rain, but not temperature controlled), so it gets up to ~100 in the summer, but that's not too bad. Most of the reason the last machine failed was the crappy wiring job and PSU. I'm trying for overkill here.

 
100F is far too hot an environment to have a harddrive running in. With no/poor ventilation they will probably run 20-40 degree's hotter than their surroundings. There is a reason why data centers try to maintain temps between 60-70F.
 
That's only 37C; I agree it's not optimal, but I don't know of any air conditioners that'll do a computer case. If you know of one (that can be temperature operated so it won't run in the winter) I'd be glad to hear of it. Maybe put a Pelt on the chassis or something?

 
Get one of the many digital temp monitors out there that allow you to plug 3 pin fans into them. Set the settings for specific temp ranges to kick the fans on when a specific temperature is exceeded. It's very easy to cool a drive to at least ambient temps with fans. Running a drive at a 100F with alot of cooling will still be better for it than running the drive at 110F, 120F, or higher due to lack of cooling. What I was getting at, was that having only a little cooling, in that situation, is almost as bad as having no cooling.
 
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