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From: Yousuf Khan on 22 Apr 2008 02:31
I tend to think that it would be best that an external drive enclosure
would be best if it had active cooling built-in (i.e. a fan). However,
I've recently seen a drive fail inside an actively-cooled enclosure so
badly that Spinrite couldn't even recover it. So I'm not sure about the
value of active cooling anymore. I have seen an aluminum portable
enclosure with a lot of good features (USB2.0 & e-SATA) for a really
cheap price, but from what I see of it, it doesn't seem to have any fans
in it. Should I worry about it, or is aluminum a good enough conductor
of heat by itself?

Yousuf Khan
From: Rod Speed on 22 Apr 2008 03:46
Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)yahoo.com> wrote:

> I tend to think that it would be best that an external drive enclosure would be best if it had active cooling built-in
> (i.e. a fan). However, I've recently seen a drive fail inside an actively-cooled enclosure so badly that Spinrite
> couldn't even recover it. So I'm not sure about the value of active cooling anymore.

The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'

> I have seen an aluminum portable enclosure with a lot of good features (USB2.0 & e-SATA) for a really cheap price, but
> from what I see of it, it doesn't seem to have any fans in it. Should I worry about it, or is aluminum a good enough
> conductor of heat by itself?

Nope, some drives do get stinking hot in aluminium enclosures,
particularly the enclosures that dont have a good conductive
heat path from the drive to the enclosure.

Then again, some enclosures with fans dont move much air over the drive either.

At least with eSATA you can monitor the drive SMART temperature.


From: Arno Wagner on 22 Apr 2008 12:38
Previously Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> I tend to think that it would be best that an external drive enclosure
> would be best if it had active cooling built-in (i.e. a fan). However,
> I've recently seen a drive fail inside an actively-cooled enclosure so
> badly that Spinrite couldn't even recover it. So I'm not sure about the
> value of active cooling anymore. I have seen an aluminum portable
> enclosure with a lot of good features (USB2.0 & e-SATA) for a really
> cheap price, but from what I see of it, it doesn't seem to have any fans
> in it. Should I worry about it, or is aluminum a good enough conductor
> of heat by itself?

Depends. You need to measure it. I have had good and bad experiences,
including one Maxtor that did heat up to 72C (and then failed) when
idle (!) in an aluminium enclosure.

A good idea is to go for a low power drive (e.g. Samsung).
(I cannot recommend WDs GP series, because while they
are low-poer, they are incompatible with at least one
current SATA/USB enclosure chipset, see my recent review
here)

As to the failure despite cooling: Cooling eleminates one
problem, but drives can fail from several ones. Cooling a
drive well will have no impact on the other sources of failure.
Cooling it badly will just add one problem that can kill a
drive by itself.

Arno
From: bbbl67 on 22 Apr 2008 14:03
On Apr 22, 3:46 am, "Rod Speed" <rod.speed....(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Yousuf Khan <bbb...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I tend to think that it would be best that an external drive enclosure would be best if it had active cooling built-in
> > (i.e. a fan). However, I've recently seen a drive fail inside an actively-cooled enclosure so badly that Spinrite
> > couldn't even recover it. So I'm not sure about the value of active cooling anymore.
>
> The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'

Maybe, but it makes you wonder, considering the enclosure was from a
well-known brand (Everex), and the drive was only six-months old.

Spinrite 6.0 went through it and found hundreds of unreadable, only
partially recoverable, sectors just in the first few megabytes,
partition table was completely trashed along with just about
everything else.

> Then again, some enclosures with fans dont move much air over the drive either.

That's what I figure happened to this guy whose drive got trashed.

> At least with eSATA you can monitor the drive SMART temperature.

That is a good point.

Yousuf Khan
From: Folkert Rienstra on 22 Apr 2008 11:48
Rod Speed wrote in news:675jemF2nb39rU1(a)mid.individual.net
> Yousuf Khan <bbbl67(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I tend to think that it would be best that an external drive enclosure
> > would be best if it had active cooling built-in (i.e. a fan). However, I've
> > recently seen a drive fail inside an actively-cooled enclosure so badly
> > that Spinrite couldn't even recover it. So I'm not sure about the value of
> > active cooling anymore.
>
> The technical term for that is 'pathetically inadequate sample'
>
> > I have seen an aluminum portable enclosure with a lot of good features
> > (USB2.0 & e-SATA) for a really cheap price, but from what I see of it, it
> > doesn't seem to have any fans in it. Should I worry about it, or is
> > aluminum a good enough conductor of heat by itself?
>
> Nope, some drives do get stinking hot in aluminium enclosures,
> particularly the enclosures

> that dont have a good conductive heat path from the drive to the enclosure.

Which is most all of them if they don't use heat conductive sheeting
between the drive sides and the mounting rails (and the mounting rails
and the rest of the enclosure if not an integral part of the shell).
Worse even for those that use the bottom mounting holes of the drive.
Also, blackened aluminum radiates heat better to the environment than
blank anodized aluminum.

>
> Then again, some enclosures with fans dont move much air over the drive
> either.

> At least with eSATA you can monitor the drive SMART temperature.

Provided they don't use an eSATA conversion chip with a limited vocabulary.


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