Cooling HDDs

Ironclad17 · January 24, 2017

So I built a relatively compact micro-ATX case and I've been worried about my HDD temps. I have 2 and they're both hovering around 51-49 degrees. I understand that above 50 while not terrible is bad for their long term performance. There really isn't any room in the bottom of the case for extra fans and no mounting points directed to the back. I was considering HDD coolers that mount directly on the drives. They don't seem very common or reliable though. The only decent looking ones seem to mount on the bottom of the drive which is blocked by the bracket. I was wondering if I could just stick 2 80 mm case fans between them with double sided tape. It would be a tight squeeze. Alternatively I could replace the stock 200 mm fan in the front of the case, but I don't see that helping much with the wiring in the way. Then again would 2 high static pressure Noctua NF-A14s in the front do the job? Alternatively" https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16835103073

Eniqmatic · January 24, 2017

Yeah, I wouldn't personally want my hard drives at that temperature for long periods of time. AS you mentioned, how about looking at lowering the ambient temperature of the case and the rest of the components first? Do you have any idea of what the temperature is inside the case on average? Is your CPU and GPU overclocked?

Ironclad17 · January 24, 2017

Both are overclocked but they have pretty substantial radiators. I haven't stress tested it but with normal load both are in low 50s for the most part. Pretty wide ambient temp range due to the climate and the fact that I can't get maintenance to replace my god damn blinds. I just left the PC on all day today while I was out. The mobo is at 34 degrees and the hdds are at 46 & 44 respectively. I did bring the CPU OC down to a lower voltage and that's noticeably helped but on hot days I'm still concerned. If you have any experience with hdd coolers or know whether a 200 mm fan upgrade would be better I'd love to know! I would think the larger fan would be quieter but I need static pressure. Looking at specs, it's clear 2 NF-A14s would be superior: http://noctua.at/en/products/fan/nf-a14-pwm/specification vs http://www.coolermaster.com/cooling/case-fan/megaflow-200-blue-led-silent-fan/

So now I have a question of urgency. I'm going to be overseas until April. If the HDDs are only occasionally getting around 50 degrees for maybe 2 hours a week on average, will they lose data integrity significantly? Should I just keep an eye on SMART? Well worst case scenario, I still have the stock fans from the h110i, those will definitely do the job though loud. Should be ok at lower RPM, only need a slight improvement in temps.

EDIT: Well I did replace them with the SP140Ls from my H110. 35-37 degrees idle now with like 30% usage on the the fans. As expected a little noisy but tolerable. Might bring the speed down a little more, but not letting them go over 40 degrees. Temps went back up a few days later and I couldn't figure it out for awhile. Did some better cable management, removed the extra drive tray; tuned the fan profile for hours. Finally remembered my PSU has an Eco friendly mode that turns the fan off until it starts overheating. Well even if the PSU isn't overheating, that doesn't mean everything near it isn't. That should finally fix my issues.