Fans necessary on external HD for samples?

[Sonare Coeli]

Hey everyone,

I was looking at external enclosures for my new sample drive, and I was wondering if having fans is a necessity, or if an enclosure with the standard aluminum head sink design would be enough. With Play's streaming engine, it seems like things would get the HD running a little hotter than usual just by the fact that the drive is always engaged in steaming samples to some degree.

Thanks for any input!

Tyler

[playz123]

Different drives behave differently, but let's put it this way...it wouldn't hurt to have a fan. Any reason you went with a drive and are now trying to find an enclosure as opposed to purchasing an external drive already in its own enclosure? Some external drives already have a fan in the case.............frank

[persentio]

Do not believe all that product marketing hype about them aluminium enclosures being great heat dissipators. When it boils down to it, as long as you are going to be using the external drive for long periods of time I definitely recommend you get one with a built-in fan.

[Jeff Hayat]

"if an enclosure with the standard aluminum head sink design would be enough."

What model are you looking at? I don't recall seeing any external hds with heatsinks. Maybe there are, and I just have yet to see them. Enclosures usually are designed to dissapate whatever heat they create via the case/enclosure itself. Whether or not enough heat is dissapted to prolong the live of the drive, and whether or not external hds are designed to take the kind of abuse put forth onto them that us musicians who stream samples do, are other questions, however...

"it wouldn't hurt to have a fan"

It may. If the heat is dissapated away from the enclosure - whether it be with or without a heatsink - what the fan will do is blow that warm air right back onto the enclosure, thereby keeping the enclosure warm by 1) again, blowing warm air onto the enclosure, and 2) disallowing warm air to move away from the enclosure.

Best thing to do is keep the ambient air cool and free of as much humidity as humanly possible (don't fart too much!!!) Cooler ambient air is better than a fan blowing warm air.

Cheers.

[WoodIsGood]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hayat

Best thing to do is keep the ambient air cool and free of as much humidity as humanly possible (don't fart too much!!!) Cooler ambient air is better than a fan blowing warm air.

Hilarious!

[Sonare Coeli]

Originally Posted by playz123

Different drives behave differently, but let's put it this way...it wouldn't hurt to have a fan. Any reason you went with a drive and are now trying to find an enclosure as opposed to purchasing an external drive already in its own enclosure? Some external drives already have a fan in the case.............frank

Mostly because I already had the hard drive sitting around (from an older computer), and also because if something goes wrong, I'd rather replace a $80 HDD than a $150+ full assembly.

Originally Posted by persentio

Do not believe all that product marketing hype about them aluminium enclosures being great heat dissipators. When it boils down to it, as long as you are going to be using the external drive for long periods of time I definitely recommend you get one with a built-in fan.

I assumed that somewhat. There's only a few fanless designs that looked really promising to me for decent heat dissipation.

Originally Posted by Jeff Hayat

"if an enclosure with the standard aluminum head sink design would be enough."

What model are you looking at? I don't recall seeing any external hds with heatsinks. Maybe there are, and I just have yet to see them. Enclosures usually are designed to dissapate whatever heat they create via the case/enclosure itself. Whether or not enough heat is dissapted to prolong the live of the drive, and whether or not external hds are designed to take the kind of abuse put forth onto them that us musicians who stream samples do, are other questions,

Most of what I saw that looked decent was made of aluminum and was ribbed, so as to create more surface area for heat to escape from, using the same concept that you described. The ones that employ this most obviously are the LaCie 2big drives.

Originally Posted by Jeff Hayat

however...

"it wouldn't hurt to have a fan"

It may. If the heat is dissapated away from the enclosure - whether it be with or without a heatsink - what the fan will do is blow that warm air right back onto the enclosure, thereby keeping the enclosure warm by 1) again, blowing warm air onto the enclosure, and 2) disallowing warm air to move away from the enclosure.

Best thing to do is keep the ambient air cool and free of as much humidity as humanly possible (don't fart too much!!!) Cooler ambient air is better than a fan blowing warm air.

Cheers.

Thanks for bringing that up, I hadn't thought of that. It looks like most of the enclosures worth buying do have a grated back or side in addition to the fan intake to allow for air flow. Some of the cheaper ones still have an extra grate, but it's either small or awkwardly placed.

I'll keep looking at fanless designs as well, and I'll remember to keep my gas to myself while in the studio, heh heh. Wouldn't that be a way for a HDD to die?