non-cooled external Hd's
 

Is there any reason to believe their might be higher failure rates with external hard-drives that use enclosures that don't have a fan but rather use a metal housing as a natural heatsink?
Anyone have any info?

I would never go without a fan. On the other hand, fans can fail and an insulative plastic case would be bad. Get a metal case with a fan. I've heard of MANY external hard drive failures on units that weren't moved much so it shouldn't be caused by shock.

Maybe use an enclosure with two fans.

I find that the metal enclosures with no fan still get quite hot. My guess is that heat is bad since the thermal expansion + contraction will eventually cause failure.

I use external drives only for storage. I have a desktop dedicated to video editing, and it has two hard drives: 30 GB for the OS and 120 GB for my video projects. Every so often I copy my video project to an external (250 GB) hard... "just in case" - no fan, just a sturdy metal case. I also own a laptop drive in metal case, this one goes with me pretty much everywhere I go.

Used this way, external drives should not be affected too much by heat... by the time they warm up, I'm done copying (less than a minute per GB) and I switch them off.

I use 3 Hds (2 250 gb and 1 500 gb) without fans and have had no problems as of yet . They are 1 year old. They are basically heatsinks in themselves and I have no worry. I use them for storage and video editing. Fan motors make heat too, so I think it is a logical design. Plus, I don't need to worry about the fan breaking or slowing down with dust.

Fans remove more heat than they give off... that's why they're used for cooling. That's why your CPU heatsink needs a fan.

With two fans, it's fine if one breaks down.

They aren't very good heatsinks... you can just feel them.

Thanks guys- it's comforting to know some of you have used them w/o problems. I have a pair of 250 GB drives for media files with Final Cut Pro and will be adding more soon and was wondering about the longevity of these non-fanned HD enclosures- thanks for the comments guys.

(Note: they get hot, almost too hot to hold but just not quite- but I guess they are doing their job of expelling heat from the HD itself.)

My HDs inside my computer get so hot you can't touch them. The metal non-fan enclosures work, they're cooler than that. I've had three and they've never failed me.

I've used several kinds. What works is an all metal case, with a fan, that has ample room inside for airflow. They are not slimline, nor sleek, but they are "cool".

Heatsinks alone are not enough. It's an attempt to increase the surface area of the drive that will allow rapid dissapation. However, you run the risk of creating hot spots and entraping or containing the heat.

You would be better off removing the cover and exposing the drive to airflow. I've had a fanless, slim and sleek design before and was getting erractic behavior and frame drops while editing. I removed the cover, and using a 20' firewire cable, placed the thing in front of a the hotel room AC.

It all depends... if you are using fanless you need to store it VERTICAL to allow more heat to diffuse into the air. You can also use drives that run cooler. In the past I had several LaCie drives that were fanless fail and I only use units with fans now.



ash =o)

I frequently use externals without a fan...but I have a nice desktop fan that blows on the computer and the externals at the same time. Much more powerful than any tiny fan...never had a problem and I stay cool as well :)

Paul

Well, I had my 1st in house edit today and my external fanless HD failed after the 8th hr of editing in a small hot room with 4 people.

I recommend a fan HD for serious editing. The drive was mad hot and fortunately the data is still there, but I was unable to preview the editing board because the frame rate had dropped so bad.

I'll try a a fan and storing it vertically and report back if there is another problem.

I have an ext. enclosure with a fan and four internal drives and all of them have HDD coolers fitted. The only problem is I could only get sleeve bearing fans so they don't last forever.
Without the coolers fitted to the internal HDD, the temperature gets too hot to touch, with them they run only slightly warm.

Fans do fail though - I just replaced two of my internal HDD coolers and replaced a graphics card fan a couple of months ago, but fans are cheap.

I can understand people having no problems with uncooled external enclosures, but to give the hard drives the best chance, I wouldn't use one without a fan.

Kyle.

I've never (knock on wood) had a drive fail on me yet. I have four 200GB drives, a 10000rpm 74GB, a 120GB, two external 500GB, and two external 400GB drives...never had a single problem with any of them. They usually get 'warm', borderline 'hot' on some occassions, but they never get turned off so I don't know if that has something to do with them running so well.

My internal drives have two big 120mm fans in front of them, so I dont worry about them. My externals use aluminum cases that dissapate the heat [like my occassionally warm Macbook Pro :) ]

I never had a problem either, until today. Usually, I edit for a hr or so and take a break and then edit some more following the same pattern for 8 hrs.

But today with 4 people watching, eating, talking, and drinking coffee with no breaks for 8 hrs, things were different. Everything was hot by the end of the day.

I had all the music and footage from two video shoots that were both 3 cam shoots on this 1 HD. This one 500GB drive was working the hardest for me and all eyes were watching its performance.

Right now, I have a big fan near the HD that is situated on a brick so air may flow underneath it. I just checked and it is working well again, but if I lost this project I would be the biggest heel.

Luckily, the drive died near the end of the session and everyone was happy with the work that was done. No one even cared that the drive was not working right and that it contained everything for this project. I was having a secret heart attack. They told me the last few things they wanted and parted with kind works and goodbyes.

I still am a little shaken by the almost loss of everything. My boss is really counting on me and this fanless HD.