Cooling for the hard drive. Extending the life of your hard drive. Installation of cooling on the HDD. Causes of hard drive overheating
I have been dealing with the issue of HDD cooling for a long time.
The first two hard drives that I had - did without it, were not too hot in themselves, and I didn’t really understand the iron innards of the computer. Then he began to take an interest in iron, assembled the second system unit with his own hands, took care of heating the HDD, because during long work it became quite hot, sometimes almost burning.
After sorting through the solutions presented on the market, the 5" panel with a small cooler in front was discarded, and many variants of "belly" coolers were sorted out.
For a while, I calmed down, and simply put a cooler on each hard drive, powered by +5 volts instead of +12 - this was how quiet operation was achieved with good efficiency.
Recently, my main computer has become more powerful and at the same time quieter. Against the background of the rest of the cooling elements, bushings and fan motors on hard drives became audible. In addition, a fairly large number of such coolers have already passed through my hands, and often even at +5 volts they continued to make noise - either the motor rumbles with windings, or the impeller hums with air ... Lotorrhea, in general. Plus, the problem of pollution was discovered (however, for coolers in a 5"-bay with a 40mm fan on the "muzzle", this is even worse) - the cooler, at its low speed, managed to get quite a lot of dust under the legs of the microcircuits, I don't think that it was useful for hards.
I wondered how to replace these "buzzers" ... Most ATX cases now have a fan on the front panel, in most full-sized ATX - 120 mm. Why extra coolers on the HDD when there is already a cooler nearby? I tried to remove the fans from the hard drives... The "banks" remained quite hot, but you could hold your hand (monitoring showed 40...47 degrees at room temperature +25), but the microcircuits on the boards were extremely pitiful. Now usually on the boards the most heating elements are the processor and the motor/head driver. Sometimes even some kind of power stabilizer. For interest, I measured the temperature regimes of microcircuits ... In a typical modern HDD, the processor heats up to 40 ... 55 degrees at rest, i.e. my hand is already hot enough (I have a pain threshold of about 45 degrees), the spindle driver is even hotter - usually 45 ... 60 at rest, and with a random search, the temperature quickly jumps higher and calmly goes beyond 70 ... thermometer). The temperature sensor is usually installed on the board outside the microcircuits and / or in the "bank" and its temperature is lower.
An aluminum radiator can be easily bought at the store if its dimensions are a little off - it's easy to cut off the excess. I didn’t see thermal pads for sale (didn’t look), but they are easy to find in broken CD / DVD drives (through them heat is removed from the engine driver chips to the device case) or on video cards (between heatsinks and memory chips). If the thickness of one is not enough - you can dial a few.
The materials are quite affordable.
Having once stopped by a well-known radio parts store for details, I remembered that I needed to pick up a radiator for this project. Picked up. It is called "HS 530-100". The fins are not high, with additional grooves to increase the heat exchange area, the base is thicker than the fins, one HDD in width is higher than the roof, I figured it out in the store - maybe it’s enough for two hard drives ... I bought what I needed. At home, I tried on a radiator for hard drives - on all found HDDs, it covered all the "hot spots", while being shorter than the HDD itself. The width of two HDDs was enough with a big stretch ... But still I decided to cut it based on two hard drives.
Then he gutted several broken CD-ROMs, pulled out thermal pads from them.
On the occasion of installing a new HDD, I decided to try out the project in action. The hard drives were laid out on the table, old "belly" coolers were twisted from them. Nearby are radiators and thermal pads with thermal paste.
The radiator, after cutting into two, was barely enough - the edges were already hanging between the middle of the mounting holes, the screws clung to the radiator with difficulty.
How it was.
We take hard, look for "hot" places. You can figure it out even with the HDD turned off - these are usually microcircuits, they are quite large. If the board is turned upside down (HDD WD or the latest "flat" Seagate), then by heating or unvarnished pads - on the other hand, microcircuits are soldered to such sites with a "belly" to organize heat dissipation through the board. There are several vias between the pads to improve thermal conductivity.
We put thermal pads on the found areas, estimating the distance between the element and the surface of the radiator. If the thickness is not enough - we make a "sandwich". We try to make sure that there is no strong pressure on the board, but also that the thermal pads do not hang out. If the thermal pad is sticky - put it as it is, if it is smooth - we smear the contact surfaces with thermal paste.
We put the radiator on top, trying not to crawl with it, so as not to bring the thermal pads, and fasten it. The threads of the screws are the same as those with which hard drives are usually screwed to the basket.
We check for clearance, whether the thermal pads are in place.
Keep your feet warm and the Winchester cold
Today we will review the entire product line of Titan coolers designed for cooling hard drives. Some of them have already been considered by us one by one, but now it's time to bring everything together and consider all the models at once. I hope that this material will be useful to those who are looking for a cooler to cool their hard drive.
As you probably know HDD is not one of the hottest computer components. Its temperature, as a rule, does not exceed 45 degrees during operation without any additional cooling, and in the list of computer "heaters" the HDD comes after the processor, video card, power supply and system chipset. But why, then, since the advent of hard drives with a spindle speed of 7200 rpm, coolers for HDDs have come into use? The answer is simple - a hard drive is a complex mechanical device, and its performance directly depends on temperature. And if the processor or video card can be overheated without fear of consequences, then the overheating of the hard drive is detected by its SMART system and recorded in memory. Subsequently, the warranty service has the right to refuse to replace the media free of charge, since the conditions for its operation were violated. In addition, the higher the temperature of the hard drive, the less it will live. For example, a hard drive is three times more likely to fail at an operating temperature of 50 degrees Celsius than at 25 degrees Celsius.
| HDD temperature, °C | Failure Rate |
| 25 | 1.0000 |
| 26 | 1.0507 |
| 30 | 1.2763 |
| 34 | 1.5425 |
| 38 | 1.8552 |
| 42 | 2.2208 |
| 46 | 2.6465 |
| 50 | 3.1401 |
| 54 | 3.7103 |
| 58 | 4.3664 |
| 62 | 5.1186 |
| 66 | 5.9779 |
| 70 | 6.9562 |
The table above shows how much the number of failures increases when the hard drive operating temperature is above 25 degrees. Looking at this table, draw conclusions - whether it is worth cooling the hard drive or not.
For an ordinary hard drive with a spindle speed of 7200 rpm, a conventional fan is enough, which would be directed to its case (preferably from below, from the electronics side). But traditionally, there are only two designs of HDD coolers - with cooling of the HDD case by air taken from outside the computer and cooling of electronics by air inside the case. It is worth noting that in both cases, coolers cool the entire hard drive, but in one case, the electronics are more than the mechanics, and in the other, vice versa. Coolers that cool the HDD electronics are designed for simple cooling conditions, when, in general, the ventilation in the computer case is normal, and there are one or two hard drives in the case. The same models that take air from the room and cool the HDD with it are designed for more difficult conditions. For example, when an array of several hard drives is installed in the computer, and the ventilation in the case is not enough to effectively cool the drives.
Today we will consider both those and other cooling options. Let's start with the simplest models.
The first cooler in our review is a traditional design - direct cooling of electronics.
The cooler is supplied in a blister pack. The package bundle is minimal - the cooler itself, and a set of screws for mounting the hard drive.
The Titan TTC-HD11 hard drive cooler has one 60x60x10 mm fan with a blade speed of 3600 rpm. It has a performance of 15 CFM at a noise level of 26 dB. The wave-shaped body of the cooler helps the airflow to quietly pass over the entire bottom surface of the hard drive and cool both electronics and mechanics.
The 2.04 W fan is connected to the hard drive with a 4-pin PCPlug connector. The power connector is pass-through, and does not take up an extra outlet in the computer. TTC-HD11 coolers are equipped with fans with plain and rolling bearings. To be honest, I've never seen fans with rolling bearings on such coolers - the cheapening of the design forces the use of simple plain bearings. Their MTBF is 25,000 hours, and since the fan does not change here, we can consider this time as the lifetime of the entire cooler.
The cooler can be easily installed on a 3.5" hard drive. The height of the TTC-HD11 is 14 mm, which should be taken into account if you have several hard drives installed next to each other in your computer.
The next model, TTC-HD12 is very similar to the previous one. The same design of direct cooling of electronics and the bottom of the hard drive can, but with minor changes.
The cooler comes in the same "blister" package and is also equipped with only screws for attaching to the hard drive.
The body of translucent blue plastic has a different convex shape. Cuts are made in its corners for freer passage of air. It often happens that the end of a hard disk rests against the case wall, and in this case the air flow is unevenly distributed - most of it exits through a free hole, and the other part, bumping into an obstacle in the form of a case wall, causes turbulence, which negatively affects cooling and noise level. Holes in the body of the TTC-HD12 cooler solve this problem. Plus, the cooler looks prettier and more technologically advanced.
The same fan is installed here as on the TTC-HD11 model, which has the same noise level and is firmly soldered to the case in the same way.
The height of TTC-HD12 is 15mm, 1mm more than TTC-HD11. Using the terminology of video cards, we can say that with this cooler the hard drive occupies one and a half 3.5" bays.
Further development of the direct blown electronics design resulted in the TTC-HD22 cooler with two fans. In fact, the need for a second fan is highly debatable. Usually, the difference in the performance of one and two fans is small, and it is more correct to consider the second fan as a standby one. Yes, they are both connected in parallel and work at the same time. Yes, in this case, the probability that the cooler will howl like a wolf is twice as high, but... even if one fan howls or simply stops, the second one will continue its work and will not allow the drive to overheat.
A blister pack that needs to be cut with scissors to expose the cooler to the light. Inside, in addition to the cooler itself, you will find a kit for attaching it to a hard drive.
Here we also see the ventilation holes in the case, which are simply necessary here so that the air flows created by the two fans interfere less with each other. It is impossible to turn off any of the fans, just as it is impossible to change them in case of failure.
Two 60x60x10mm fans produce a total airflow of 30.06 CFM at 3600rpm and around 26dB each.
I honestly don't know how else to improve this traditional design. And, perhaps, in 3-5 years, these coolers will remain exactly the same as they were today, as they were several years ago. Well, let's move on to the next type of coolers with frontal airflow.
Titan TTC-HDC2 and TTC-HDC3
The advantages of the design with frontal airflow are that such a cooler cools the hard drive with air at room temperature. And if you have a hellish inferno in your case, your hard drive will continue to receive a fresh atmospheric stream of normal temperature. It is this cooling method that is incorporated into server cases and disk arrays. Such coolers are installed in the 5.25" bay of the case and the hard drive is mounted in them, as in an additional chassis. Titan produces models with frontal airflow TTC-HDC2 and TTC-HDC3 with two and three fans, respectively.
The coolers are supplied in the same "blister" packages, on which only a sticker indicates how many fans you will find inside :). In the kit, in addition to screws and screws, you will also find steel brackets for attaching the hard drive to the 5.25" bay of the case.
There are two or three fans installed on the front panel of the coolers, depending on the model. The 5.25" bay format does not allow vertical installation of fans larger than 40x40 mm. And such fans have a low performance - only 5.6 CFM each. Therefore, in order to achieve an airflow level like the fan on the TTC-HD11, they need a minimum Plus, these fans have to move air across the entire length of the hard drive, so two or three front-facing fans are common, each of them consumes 0.96 watts of power and, at a blade speed of 5000 rpm, produces a level noise is not higher than 23 dB.
The fans are connected to the same power connector. The only way to turn them off is by cutting the wires. But they are removed easily, and in which case - you can change them.
Both coolers have a filter installed in front of the fans to prevent dust from entering the system unit. This filter is hidden behind a decorative plastic grille. It can be easily removed for washing.
The cooler is already assembled directly in the computer case. But the hard drive is attached to the 5.25" bay separately, and the block with fans - separately. It is impossible to assemble a hard drive with a cooler into a single structure.
If we consider the distribution of air flows from the fan in such a design, it turns out that most of the air diverges directly upon collision with the end of the hard drive, and only a small part cools the electronics and the top plate of the can. For better cooling of the hard drive, manufacturers decided to install a large radiator on top of the jar.
This design was proposed back in 1999 and was called the "Ultimate Hard Drive Cooler". Its peculiarity was that the radiator mounted on top of the hard drive was blown through by frontal fans, and the use of springs on the radiator mount guaranteed uniform contact of its surface with the hard drive can.
This cooler has only two fans, a larger number does not allow you to install a hard drive mount. It also mounts in a 5.25" chassis bay with screws included.
As you can see, the front side is similar to the TTC-HD2 models. Here, too, a dust filter and a plastic grille are installed.
As you can see in the photo above, some of the fans are covered by a radiator, which has its own air ducts. In the TTC-HD82 model, the hard drive is installed inside the cooler, and then the entire structure is installed in a computer case. There is no thermal interface between the heatsink and the hard drive.
Fan performance and noise levels are similar to those of the TTC-HD22. Fans also cannot be disabled, but in which case they can be replaced.
Well, since there is a heatsink on the cooler, it is quite appropriate to put another fan on it to increase efficiency.
Titan TTC-HD88 (Alaska)
The Titan TTC-HD88 model, also known as "Alaska", combines front airflow with forced cooling of the upper radiator in its design. Today it is the top model in the line of Titan HDD coolers.
The front part of this cooler is similar to the HD88 and HD2, and the heatsink, or rather the system of heatsinks, is of interest, since there are not one, but three of them.
Two heatsinks are attached to the sides of the hard drive, which in turn are attached to the main one. The side heatsinks and the front of the hard drive are generously blown by the airflow generated by the front two fans. The top heatsink is blown by its own 70x70x10 mm fan. This fan will be very difficult to replace.
Due to the design features, the hard drive does not fit snugly against the upper radiator. So its effect on HDD temperature is minimal. Of course, the problem can be solved by adding a paste or thermal interface as a thermal interface, but this is already a task for enthusiasts. We have already considered this cooler in more detail in one of our reviews, if you want to get to know it better, the link is given at the end of this article.
Comparison
Testing was carried out as follows: the hard drive was idle for 30 minutes to equalize the temperature. After that, the IOMeter test was run for 15 minutes. At this time, the hard drive was heating up. At the end of the test, the hard drive was idle for another 15 minutes and cooled down. During the test, temperature readings were recorded every minute, which were taken by the MotherBoard Monitor program from the internal HDD sensor. We will compare idle and boot temperatures.
| test system | |
|
CPU |
Pentium 4 3.0 GHz |
| HDD |
Hitachi 60Gb 7200 RPM |
| Motherboard |
MSI 915P Combo-FR |
| Memory |
2 x 512 Mb DDR2 OCZ |
| video card | |
| Air temperature | |
Comparison of coolers.
| Comparison of hard drive coolers | |||||||
|
Model | Cooler dimensions, mm | Venti- lyators | Total CFM | The noise of everyone valve | Price, $ | Pace. at rest, o C | Pace. when loading, o C |
| TTC-HD11 | 125x100x15 | One 60x10 | 15.03 | 26 | 3.56 | 30 | 33 |
| TTC-HD12 | 125x100x15 | One 60x10 | 15.03 | 26 | 4.1 | 30 | 33 |
| TTC-HD22 | 130x100x16 | Two 60x10 | 30.06 | 26
26 | 5.46 | 30 | 32 |
| TTC-HDC2 | 149x58x43 | Two 40x20 | 11.2 | 23
23 | 5.25 | 31 | 35 |
| TTC-HDC3 | 149x58x43 | Three 40x20 | 16.86 | 23
23 23 | 5.66 | 31 | 35 |
| TTC-HD82 | 176x149x43 | Two 40x20 | 11.2 | 23
23 | 11.3 | 31 | 34 |
| TTC-HD88 | 176x149x43 | Two 40x20 One 70x10 | 28.42 | 23
23 27 | 17.5 | 30 | 34 |
| Winchester without cooler | 35 | 49 | |||||
As you can see from the table, with a significant difference in price between the coolers, the cooling effect is approximately the same everywhere. As for the noise level, the record holders for silence are HD12 and HD11 with one fan. The TTC-HDC3 with three fans is the loudest, Alaska is a little quieter. The rest of the models - in terms of noise level are something in between. Although, if you look at the noise without comparing coolers with each other, then all models of HDD coolers are very quiet compared to coolers for processors or video cards, they will be almost inaudible in a computer case.
While the temperature has a critical effect on the hard drive, it is very easy to cool it down. Under normal conditions, the simplest cooler, such as the TTC-HD11 or TTC-HD12, is enough for this. And if you have an ordinary home computer, then perhaps you should not overpay for a more expensive cooler. But if your hard drives work in difficult conditions and the temperature in the case is kept consistently high, then it makes sense to choose a cooler with air supply from outside the computer. And it is in difficult working conditions that the difference in cost between coolers will be justified.
But the low price of Titan coolers and the low noise level make us look at cooling from a different angle: even for $3.5 you can halve the probability of a hard drive failure. And if you remember how many problems a suddenly "flying" HDD can cause, then even $ 17.5 does not seem like a significant price to pay for confidence in the safety of data.
We continue our acquaintance with the families of CrownMicro brand cases, and the next in line is the CMC-245 line. This series of thin desktop cases for mini-ITX and mATX systems comes with a pre-installed ITX power supply...
By virtue of his vocation, he often began to solve computer problems associated with wear and tear. hard drive. Therefore, this article will focus on how prolong disk life with data. After all, after a HDD failure, not in all cases, information can be saved. Even if it is realistic to return your files, then in terms of money, repairs at service centers will be comparable to the cost of a new computer for office tasks.
There are quite a few recommendations for the proper operation of a hard drive, ranging from providing good power (buying an expensive power supply) to minimizing external vibration effects on the drive. But today I will share my experience of making the life of a hard drive easier by installing an additional air cooling system on it. After all, the colder the rotating parts, and not only them, the less they are subject to wear. In modern cases, coolers are installed in the front part, which drive the air flow from the outside, inside the computer, blowing at the same time the hard drive. But this is not always enough.
When choosing a cooling device for hdd, you should take into account that in new models of cases with latches in the drive bays, there may not be enough space for a drive with a cooling unit attached to it.
I go directly to the description of the process. For someone, my personal experience is useless and he will do everything himself, but for many it will be useful to read and see the photos before getting into all this themselves.
Well, let's get started. Do not forget to de-energize the system unit before starting work !!!
After removing the side wall, remove the connectors from the hard drive.
We unscrew the fixing screws that hold the hdd in the sled. If necessary, you will have to remove the second side cover to gain access to the screws on the other side of the case. But in my case, the basket for 3.5" drives can be removed from the case along with the drives, which is very convenient.
I will interrupt the description with advice on choosing a fan for a hard drive.
First - I advise you to purchase a model with two coolers, because. the fans installed in such a system rotate in different directions. One blows, the other blows out heated air.
Secondly, if all the power connectors in your computer are occupied, then in any case you will have to choose a model with an adapter in order to simultaneously connect a fan for the HDD and a second device that previously occupied this connector.
Well, it's worth taking a closer look at the characteristics of the coolers themselves. If you are sensitive to excessive fan noise, then you should choose coolers with slower rotational speeds. Well, you understand, the faster the fan blades rotate, the more efficient the cooling, but there is more noise from such. And therefore, you need to choose the ratio of efficiency - noise.
Let's go further! To perform the operation of docking a disk with a fan, the first must already be removed from system block. We place the disk on a flat surface, face down, because. cooling is attached to the bottom surface of the hdd, from the side of the controller. Then we put the fan on top, combine the mounting holes and tighten the screws.
All four pieces are desirable, so that the surfaces fit snugly and the device does not rattle during operation.
And now ours is fixed on the hard drive. Now we return the disk to the case, the main thing is that the cooling device does not interfere with the correct fixing of the drive. If all the holes matched - congratulations, you have chosen the right HDD fan.
Next, you need to provide power to the coolers of the cooling system. We are looking for a free molex connector and connect it to the fan connector.
If there is no unused connector, turn off any other device using the same connection. We connect our new cooling system in its place and then connect the old device (disconnected in the previous sentence) to the free connector that is on the wire from the fan, provided that you purchased it (fan) with just such an adapter.
The last manipulations with the connectors, we connect the hard drive back. I hope you have not forgotten which connectors were used on your HDD.
In the last photo you see the final result of a simple procedure for cooling installation for hdd.
After starting the computer, visually check the rotation of the impeller installed fan. The effectiveness of the work done can be checked by touch, but it is better to use the program AIDA64 , which incorporates the function of scanning the temperatures of the constituent parts of the computer. After installing and running this program, click on the Computer tab and then go to Sensors. Hard drive readings are listed at the end of the "Temperatures" list. In my example, there are three disks. In your case, it can be anything, most likely one.
Naturally, if you want to fix in numbers how much colder your storage device has become, you need to run this program before installing the cooling system in order to view and remember the temperature of the "DO" disk. And run AIDA64 "AFTER". In this particular example, the HDD heating turned out to be reduced by 11 degrees.
On this I stop telling, I want this article to be not just reading material, but a guide to action. Take care of your information, it is better not to bring it up to disk repair.
Those who work at the computer at night or just late are well aware that the computer can seem very noisy in those moments when the fuss around subsides and the background noise of everyday life disappears. First of all, the fans are noisy, they can be replaced with quieter ones, coolers for processors and video cards are also not a problem - even passive radiators are easy to buy nowadays. And just at the moment when we calm down all the fans in the computer, the presence of the hard drive becomes very noticeable. Grinding, growling and whimpering "hard" accompany every copy, download or other access of the computer to the hard drive. This may sound funny to some, but remember, this becomes clearly audible only when the other sources of noise are defeated. In the bowels of the hard disk, a spindle with magnetic pancakes rotates at great speed, and the reading head runs intensively along all their radii, reading and writing information. During operation, the hard drive creates quite significant vibrations that are transmitted to the case of the system unit if the hard drive is classically fixed in a 3.5 "jack. Some "advanced" cases have rubber gaskets at the points of contact between the case and the hard drive, which greatly reduces the vibration transmitted to the case (for example, ASUS Ascot series cases). But the hard drive itself continues to be a source of noise, although the overall noise level becomes noticeably lower. But the hard drive also heats up significantly. Let's consider and classify methods for combating noise and separately, and then explore a couple of complex systems to solve these problems.
Methods for Dealing with Hard Drive Noise
If your case is not equipped with rubber inserts, then you can use a special rubber suspension for a 5.25" hard drive. One of these adapters was found in Russian retail under the name "Scythe Hard Disk Stabilizer 2". There are many more similar devices, but it's very hard to find them on sale, but this one was lucky enough to come to hand. The principle of operation is simple: four rubber columns expand the hard drive mount from 3.5 "format to 5.25". rubber suspension.As practice has shown, the noise level after such a modification becomes noticeably lower. Not surprisingly, this approach the best way dampen vibrations transmitted to the body. The second way to make a hard drive quieter is to use noise-canceling boxes under the 5.25" drive bay.
The hard drive is hidden inside this box, the task of which is to absorb vibrations and noise from the hard drive. This method is the most effective in noise suppression, but exacerbates another issue - hard disk cooling. To solve this problem, additional fans for blowing are sometimes used. But this is a separate issue.
Cooling
The hard drive also heats up, because mechanical and electronic components work almost continuously inside it, generating heat. Manufacturers of hard drives admit that the reliability of their devices when the operating temperature increases from 45 to 55 degrees drops by 2 (!) times. Under normal conditions, heat dissipates from the surface of the hard drive case and is transferred to the case walls at the points of contact. Modern cases are often equipped with fans "for blowing", located on the front wall of the case. In addition to general ventilation, they also blow hard drives. This method is considered the most efficient in terms of cooling, especially if the system has several hard drives that tightly clog the seats in the case. In cases that are not equipped with such fans, additional hard drive cooling can be provided by a variety of HDD coolers. For the most part, they are divided into three types:Hanging fans
Hanging fans are attached to the bottom of the hard drive and blow around the case along with electronic equipment. They usually consist of one or two fans that rotate at 3000~6000 rpm. Such devices most often do not even initially have a low noise level, and over time, when the fan bearings begin to deteriorate, the noise from the fans becomes simply unbearable. Nevertheless, the cooling efficiency is at a fairly high level, active cooling of the case does its job.
Sled in 5.25" connector with blow-out fans
The name eloquently describes the device of such a cooler: with the help of a sled, the hard drive is installed in the 5.25 "socket, and a panel with fans is attached to the place of the plug on the front of the case, which draws air from outside the case and blows it over the hard drive. The advantages of the design are that air for blowing is taken from outside the system unit, it will always be cooler than the air inside.The disadvantages are also obvious from the design description: fans, the number of which is usually two or three, have a size of 30 ~ 40 mm, since they are limited by the width of the panel. "even higher than in the previous case, about 5000 ~ 7000 rpm. Initially, the noise from them does not put much pressure on the ears, but the durability of the bearings at this rotation speed is much lower, and they fail faster, with corresponding consequences.
Heatsinks for HDD with installation in 5.25" connector
This is a more advanced device, a heatsink is attached to the hard drive, which increases the heat dissipation surface, thereby improving cooling. Sometimes these radiators are also blown by fans for greater efficiency. In fact, the efficiency of such a heatsink most of all depends on the organization of heat exchange between the hard drive and the heatsink. The lower the thermal resistance at the points of contact between the hard drive and heatsinks, the higher the efficiency of the cooling system. But it is very difficult. The hard drive does not have special contact surfaces for heat sinks; more or less heat can be removed only from the side walls, which have a flat surface and are equipped with mounting holes for installation. Cooling of hard drive electronics is possible only with the help of thermal pads, which are the least efficient of all heat dissipation methods. The efficiency of this type of HDD cooler is determined by the efficiency of heat removal from the hard drive and the efficiency of its dissipation from the radiator surface. Today we will look at two HDD heatsinks installed in a 5.25" slot, which are designed to reduce the noise level from the operation of the hard drive, while providing proper cooling.
A computer failure can put your business or school project to a standstill. Almost every employee of a modern company conducts all his business on a computer workstation. Losing access to your computer for even an hour can result in huge losses in daily sales and revenue. Of course, everyone expects that their computer will work without problems all the time. But what most people don't realize is that the most important element of any PC is not the Wi-Fi, the monitor, or even the keyboard, but the hard drive hidden deep inside the device. It is extremely important to make sure that your hard drive is protected and maintained throughout the life of your computer. If you don't save it, it may crash and take all your data with it.
HDD cooling rules.
The first computers ever made could only operate at a constant temperature, about room temperature. To achieve the appropriate temperature and humidity conditions and ensure the smooth operation of the PC, it was necessary to use special cooling systems. Since then, everything has changed dramatically. Modern computers can operate at higher ambient temperatures, performing millions of calculations per second more. Cooling methods for modern computers that have been invented and tested in recent years have been greatly minimized. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. So that you can choose the one that suits your needs, first check out their features.
Overheating is one of the most common problems users have with their hard drives. It is important that computer owners understand that overheating is not just a minor inconvenience. Research shows that a hot hard drive is a harbinger of hard drive failure. A hard drive failure causes people to lose all their data, especially if there is no proper backup system in place. When a professional loses all their data, it can cause huge business damage. Overheating is something that is easy to spot: your laptop or computer case may feel warm or hot to the touch. Some of the other telltale signs of impending computer failure include:
- Significant loading delay or slow file access.
- Strange sounds - especially loud clicks.
- The fans run longer and louder than usual.
- Data disappears or becomes corrupted.
- "Blue screen of death".
Causes of hard drive overheating
Blocked airflow. Air must be drawn into the computer in order for the fans to do their job. Make sure your computer is located where nothing is preventing air from entering the vents. Faulty fans. When a fan gets dirty, it has to work harder to maintain the proper temperature and overheat the hard drive. Clean coolers every 3-6 months. Dust. Dust not only blocks airflow, but also insulates components that need to be cooled by fans. Dust is your enemy! Place your computer in a location that is dust-free and easy to keep clean.
Advantages and disadvantages
A common problem in product development, especially in electronics, is thermal management for optimum efficiency. The essence of the task is to develop energy-saving microprocessors and printed circuit boards (PCB) that will not overheat. An often overlooked aspect of solving computer thermal management problems is architectural design. Whether it's a private home, an office building, or a dedicated server room, architectural considerations can have a huge impact on the thermal management solutions available. To address and reduce the difficulties and inefficiencies resulting from heating, engineers use various hard drive cooling systems to control the conditions. These systems can be divided into two main categories: those with active and passive cooling methods. But what is the difference between them?
Passive cooling
The benefits of passive cooling methods are energy efficiency and lower financial costs. Passive cooling provides a high level of natural convection and heat dissipation through the use of a heat spreader or heat sink to maximize radiative and convection heat transfer modes. In other words, passive cooling is based on the use of air passing through the PC case and its coolers. Passive thermal management is an economical and energy efficient solution that relies on heat sinks, heat spreaders, heat pipes or thermal interface materials (TIM) to maintain optimal operating temperatures.
Active cooling
Active cooling, on the other hand, refers to cooling technologies that rely on an external device to improve heat transfer. Thanks to active cooling technologies, during convection, the flow rate increases, which dramatically increases the rate of heat removal. Active cooling solutions include forced airflow through a fan or blower, forced fluid flow, and thermoelectric coolers (TECs) that can be used to optimize hard drive thermal management. Fans are used when natural convection is insufficient to remove heat. They are usually integrated into electronics, such as a computer case, or connected to processors, hard drives, or chipsets to maintain thermal conditions and reduce the risk of failure. The main disadvantage of active thermal management is that it requires the use of electricity and therefore leads to higher costs compared to passive.
Passive HDD cooling systems
As with active air cooling for a hard drive, passive air cooling uses a fin that mimics the large cooling surface of the part. But with passive air cooling, this plate is several times larger than with active cooling, and this is because there is no fan in the fins that could direct the air where it is needed. The fins should be large enough and there should be enough space between them to allow for natural airflow. Cooling fins can be very heavy and sometimes need to be secured over the part to be cooled to prevent damage to the hard drive or board and to be exposed to airflow from the cooler. Passive air cooling is the most effective way in terms of energy saving, since it does not actually require power to operate.
This method has a major drawback: weight. Heavy and large platters must be fixed on small parts and hard drives, adding to the overall weight of the computer and reducing the usable area inside the case. Also, the ambient temperature cannot be very high, as this will render passive air cooling ineffective. In many cases, a computer case has 1-2 fans to circulate air inside. The reliability of the system is very high. If the HDD cooling requirements match the system's ability, then this is the number one choice. Maintenance cost is only 0.
Active hard drive cooling systems
The fan blows fresh air onto a cooling plate located above the hard drive. The plate usually has a flat surface, which on one side touches the cooled part, and on the other side there are several ribs. These ribs increase the surface of the plate and hence its heat transfer capacity. The fan makes circulation faster and more efficient as it removes the thermal surface of the air that forms between the fins. Active air cooling of a hard drive is efficient in terms of energy savings with one major drawback: it can only reduce the operating temperature of a part to temperatures that are always higher than the ambient temperature. This can be a problem when the PC is running in a harsh environment or there are other components near it that can generate high temperatures during operation.
The reliability of these systems is very high, because even if the fan stops working, the system can act as passive air cooling for several minutes. What's more, when a fan is about to fail, it will usually make a strange noise for a few days, giving the user enough time to replace it. The cost of maintaining this system is low and affordable for everyone.
Water cooling
This is a fairly new trend in cooling systems for PC cases and hard drives. The basic system consists of cooling plates, hoses through which the coolant flows, a small coolant tank, a circulation pump, and a radiator. A cooling plate is attached to each cooled component. It is usually made of copper or aluminum and is a hollow plate with an inlet and outlet for coolant. The circulation pump will circulate coolant from the radiator to the fins, then to the reservoir and back to the radiator. In the radiator, the coolant lowers the temperature. Depending on the type of radiator, water cooling can also be divided into active and passive.
- Passive water cooling: In this method, the radiator is made from a long, thin copper or aluminum hose that has fins made from the same material attached to its perimeter in various ways. As the hot coolant passes through the pipe, it cools down to ambient temperature.
- Active water cooling: With this method, water is not cooled naturally, but using other means of cooling, such as small Peltier freon thermocouples.
In some cases, the coolant may circulate naturally. To do this, the reservoir and radiator must be placed higher than the highest cooling plate in the system (i.e. higher than the HDD), the hoses must be of a larger diameter, and the radiator must be designed so that the coolant can flow freely through it. In general, water cooling can get pretty messy when pipe connections fail. The pump also requires a lot of energy to operate, which reduces its efficiency, but this can be circumvented by choosing natural flow. On the other hand, with active water cooling, the operating temperature can be quickly reduced to ambient temperature or even lower.
The main disadvantage is the reliability of the system, since a failure of the pump will mean an almost instantaneous increase in the temperature of the HDD and other PC components, so special security measures must be taken to improve reliability. In addition, water cooling has technical problems when it is applied to various PC components such as additional hard drives, memory sticks, north/south bridge chips, etc. Not all parts can be equipped with water cooling plates, which makes this method is not available. Therefore, fans for air circulation inside the case are almost always present in these systems. The cost of installation and service is sometimes higher than in previous versions, as regular maintenance of the pump is required.
The choice of the most suitable method of cooling the hard disk is associated with certain requirements. Power consumption, ambient temperature, humidity, operating temperature, and parts casing are the most important parameters to consider when choosing a cooling method. If you have already encountered the choice of a cooling system for your HDD or other PC components, share this with our readers in the comments below the article.
