Ibanez JEM Forum banner

External harddrives without internal fans?

3K views 24 replies 8 participants last post by  Algiman 
#1 · (Edited)
Hi,

I thought it was a bad idea not to have some sort of internal cooling system, in the form of, for instance, a fan when using a harddrive? I've been looking at external harddrives, and there seem to plenty who don't have fans. :confused:

What am I missing here? Do they have some other kind of cooling system? Or don't they need to be cooled, because they're not used as intensely as an internal harddrive?

I'm just curious. :)

Alwin
 
#2 ·
If it is just a hard drive in the box, then heat isn't that much of a problem, even if they are being used intensively. Heat will dissipate quickly enough through the case. Inside a PC you have an environment that is hotter to begin with.

Also, look at early generation MP3 players; they all had internal hard drives running all the time and no cooling fan.
 
#4 ·
avoid the fans as they're cheap, small, noisy and will squeek in short order. real PITA (unless you're getting a real nice multi-drive rack).

Get a metal case which will dissipate the heat nicely... glen
+1

Metal enclosures act as a heatsink, and should wick away excess heat from the drive. Usually, this isn't a problem for external drives, though.

You could always go with flash memory, though. Noiseless, heatless, no moving parts. Certainly not practical for backing up entire hard drives, naturally, but you can get 16GB flash drives for around $40 now. Crazy stuff.
 
#8 ·
Most external enclosures that have a 40mm fan also have a sensor so the fun runs only when the temperature in the enclosure is higher than normal, which rarely happens because there are no other components adding heat (unlike in a Desktop).

I don't like the idea of external hard drives so instead I set up a NAS device with dual 500GB drives, so now I have a central file server and dedicated media server which I can access from any computer on my wireless network. The NAS device also acts as an FTP server so I can access files remotely even while I'm not home :)
 
#10 ·
External HDD's have only one function, storage, and they don't work standalone. A NAS device is standalone and is permanently hooked up to my router, which enables me to use it as a file server, media streaming server, ftp server (web server, download and print server as well, if required :)).

Trouble is I have 3 computers and found myself duplicating my data and work, to such an extent that I had to version control them lol. Now they all sit on this central file server and can be accessed by any wifi-enabled device.

It's a great investment and very flexible because you can keep upgrading the hard drive/s in them.
 
#12 ·
is there any enclosures you can buy to stick a sata drive in it, with previous data on it...or does any enclosure that you add a drive in - with it require a reformat..??

i have a couple drives that i want to remove movies an etc...and usually i swap em out of my computer in and out and it will access anything like a regular drive.....will any enlosures do this..??
 
#17 · (Edited)
NAS devices will require at least 1 hard drive to be formatted in order to initialize the NAS device and setup your dual drives in SPAN or RAID mode. I assumed you were referring to a standard external HDD enclosure, which does not require a format in order to operate.

If you plan to keep swapping drives in and out to transfer data, you're better off with a regular enclosure. Think of your NAS setup as a permanent file or media server where you plan to store all data, music, movies, etc. and access them at any time from any device on your network.

I highly recommend the Vantec NexStar as a single HDD enclosure for IDE or SATA drives. If you're looking for a NAS solution, let me know your budget and I'll find you something reliable. I use an ICYBOX NAS4220-B with dual 500GB drives as my file/media server.

EDIT: Did some searching and the NexStar 3 sells for under $30, and it is no mediocre solution.
 
#16 ·
Fans are usually not needed. The hard drive is spec'd out to work at up to 55 degrees Celsius. This means it will reliably work for years at that temperature. This is why Apple computes are so quiet - Apple doesn't cool things if they don't need to be cooled. They let the hard drive in iMac reach about 45 degrees Celsius before the fan even starts rotating. They run their processor fans really slow, too, because guess what? Depending on the processor its max operating temperature is 65 degrees Celsius or more, with some mobile Intel processors running fine at much higher than that. There's simply no point in cooling it to room temperature, it won't run any better.
 
#18 ·
i would love to keep all my media on a nas. only becasue both hard drives i have are filled to the brim with movies and music, and i sold my graphics computer...soooo....i wanted to just put it all on a nas so i can acess it with my tv setup, internet setp, etc..


what kind of budjet ranges can i have, id like to utilize the nas with both drives with all my exisisting data....
 
#19 ·
Well, there's the D-Link DNS-323 2-bay SATA NAS device which is available for $180 on the egg. It's a very comprehensive solution just like my ICYBOX, and not everyone needs the list of features these enclosures ship with. There's also the Linksys NAS200 enclosure shipping for under $120.

A simpler solution would be to get a single HDD network enclosure since 750GB drives are really affordable now. In fact, some of these NAS devices ship with a hard drive too. Let me look up some solutions and post back in a while.
 
#20 ·
The Buffalo LS-L500GL is a 500GB network storage solution for $160, with no multimedia functionality, however it would be great for centralized file storage/access.

Western Digital also have a 750GB solution for under $200 as well - model# WDG1NC7500N. Prices are all off the egg.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top