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hard drive cooling

the case will be a custom make because it's going to wind up behind a 55" flat panel tv. i'm going to put the ODD on the bottom of the build either on left/right side so that i have access to the disk drive under the bottom left/right side of the tv. i'm in the preliminary sketch stage for the case construction, but if the heat sink fins don't really do a whole lot then i'll just build without them. would applying thermal compound make those sinks work better? another thing is about reducing sound/vibration...14 harddrives may create a lot of sound. however, in my server in my basement that's housing 20 harddrives isn't really all that loud...so...i don't know.
 
No, they won't do much for noise, either. I'm not sure how you plan on configuring this case but I'd caution you that building it without some kind of forced air cooling for the drives (i.e. a fan blowing across them) is poorly advised, at best. Hard drive lifespan and temperature are very strongly correlated, and they're going to get very hot with little or no airflow, with or without heatsinks. And if you get decent drives they shouldn't be that loud by themselves anyhow.

Edit: I assume that if you want to put it behind a TV, you need something that's fairly thin profile. If it were me, what I would do is mount a row of 120mm fans underneath and parallel to the hard drives, with about a 1/4" air gap between the fan exhaust and the drive controller board and bottom of the drive's case. You can then cover the tops of the drives with a sound deadening foam, and the drives will stay quite cool even with low flow 120mm fans like the 37cfm/16dB Scythe Gentle Typhoons or the 49cfm/17dB Sanyo Denki 9S1212L401s.
 
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xjmtx said:
the case will be a custom make because it's going to wind up behind a 55" flat panel tv. i'm going to put the ODD on the bottom of the build either on left/right side so that i have access to the disk drive under the bottom left/right side of the tv. i'm in the preliminary sketch stage for the case construction, but if the heat sink fins don't really do a whole lot then i'll just build without them. would applying thermal compound make those sinks work better? another thing is about reducing sound/vibration...14 harddrives may create a lot of sound. however, in my server in my basement that's housing 20 harddrives isn't really all that loud...so...i don't know.
Click to expand...

As several have mentioned above, fins, no fins, some airflow is the key and more is always better.

Some people concerned with sound use isolation pads/rubber washers etc to isolate the HD from the frame/case. If there is a fan moving air over the drive this is fine. However what a lot of people do not realize is that the sides of the HD and the mounting to the case is part of the thermal design of harddrives. It is expected they be screwed into a drive bay which allows the entire mass of the case to act as a heatsink when a fan is not present and the metal mounting screws contribute a lot to the thermal path. (a good argument for not using toolless cases with plastic HD retaining hardware when no fan is present). So if you use some isolation method to kill the sound an add-on heatsink with positive air movement is a very good idea. Heatsink compound between any metal to metal surface where heat transfer is desired is a good idea, You just have to deal with the mess of assembly and disassembly.

The heat sink fins if applied properly and if some air moving over them will work great. Heatsinks with no air over them just absorb heat to some point where they become saturated and while the increased surface area helps a tiny bit with dissipation but in dead air they are basically useless.

This is pricey at $30 a pop, more like what you want maybe ?
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/606/3/

I am having a hard time believing that the thing worked better by itself with no fan than a fan blowing directly over the drive but I was not there. With a fan it should be great. There are lots of other stuff like that out there . http://www.xoxide.com/hardrivcool1.html

just Google "HD cooler" and you have got to find something that will work for you.
 
if you plan to go with the low rpm/low power drives from WD or Seagate temps really wont be an issue since they dont create all that much heat.. but usually just good air cooling is enough.. heck all my drives sit at 35 C or lower and all i have is a 250mm fan running at 100rpm pushing air over them..
 
the plan is this. 14 2tb drives at 7200rpm and 2 10k rpm drives in raid for os/programs.
sorta like this:
img0080ao.jpg

maybe i'll cut the holes between the drives and mount the fans to pull air out the back....
 
That Nexus DiskTwin you linked is nice because it provides two functions - heatsink and noise/vibration isolation. A standard 3.5" hard drive doesn't have a whole lot of surface area to radiate heat away - about 1"x5" on each long side, 1"x3.5" on each short side and 5"x3.5" on the bottom. Those aren't exact numbers and the surfaces aren't completely flat, but that's about 34.5 square inches of surface area. Since the top is usually thinner and separated from the casing with a gasket, I didn't include that, though it should still help radiate heat a little.

Assuming the DiskTwin fins are about 1/2" tall, just the big fins on a single one would provide 30 surfaces of 1"x1/2", or 15 sq. in. of surface area. The little fins would be another 24 surfaces of 1"x1/4" which is another 6 sq. in. of surface area, plus the big T-fin with the Nexus logo on it, plus all the miscellaneous surface area on the edges. I'd bet that each one has about 25 sq. in. of surface area, which would take up the 5 sq. in. on the side of the drive. A drive with a set of those would probably gain 40 sq. in. of surface area (+25 +25 -5 -5) over the 34.5 sq. in. of a bare drive.

As others have said, you'll still need some airflow to move the hot air away and let cool air get in there, but those DiskTwins should double the surface area of the drive while providing rubber mounting isolation too. Based on the way the DiskTwin fins are aligned, this would would best with the fans blowing on the top or bottom of the drives, so the airflow will go along and through the fins.
 
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