Is hard drive cooling really necessary

[Guest matt11]

Hi, I have a pair of 200GB hard drives set up in a raid 0 array with one just above the other in my PC case. I am trying to reduce the noise coming from my PC and have just installed a new processor cooler(Zalman 9700) with a huge 110mm fan. I have one more fan in my system which sits between the hard drives and the front of the case. Is this fan really necessary as I'm sure the fan on the CPU cooler will pull enough air accross the hard drives anyway. Tempted to remove this fan as it's quite small and incredibly noisy.Thanks for any hints you may have.Matt

[Guest wayupthere]

Hi Matt,Well the Zalman 9700 correctly setup, blows to the back of the case, where under ideal circumstances you would have another outtake fan mounted. And it will pull air from your case around, if there is indeed a good airflow setup present (how is your airflow setup?).. It will however not suck more of the heat away surrounding your drives, compared to one actually blowing onto the drives.Now have you measured how hot your drives are actually getting? You could take away the fan, if its doesn't get too crazy hot in that drive-bay, but keep in mind, the cooler components stay the longer (under ideal usage) they live.Now if they run normal warm and you have an ideal intake-outtake setup going.. you should be ok without the HD fan, I personally wouldn't recommend it though.If they are running fairly hot, you could opt for "Quiet-Coolers", they are a bit more expensive than standard coolers, but produce less noise, you could look for heat-pipe cooling to mount onto the drives or you can get drive-enclosures. OR you could think of getting ONE BIG fan, if possible to mount ofcourse depending on your case, that runs at a lower RPM thus lowering the noise, whilst still retaining an adequate CFM.Another thing you can do is to put rubber seals between the drives and case them selfs in order to cut down on the amount of resonance you get from the drive spinning thus transferring some sound to the case which itself acts like a "speaker" amplifying it slightly. This wont take away the heat, but will reduce the noise.My take, a silent PC is great, but it does not weigh up to getting too hot components. Measure the temps and go from there.

[Guest matt11]

Thanks for the advice, think I'll leave that small fan in there for the time being as I really would prefer the keep the longevity of my components.Matt

[Guest baksteen33]

Hi Matt, just to add a thought or two. Ideally, HDs run at constant temperatures once operational. When temps fluctuate, HDs go into re-calibration and won't read or write. Certes, only split seconds, but enough to produce a stutter or two. FlyTendos take a while to run warm, particularly from cold boots. 3D is likewise, modern systems seem to need to adopt to their 'final running condition' - it's a chain of happenings as soon as you start 3D --> More heat gets induced to the case as your system is nearly doubling it's energy consumption (or more...) --> internal adjustments --> 'final running condition' The greatest 'HD-crime' - IMHO - is stacking 2 HDs directly on top of eachother. ;-) Unless you have a ventilator blowing at them... ;-) Wise decision, Matt! Cheers and kind regards Jaap