Hard Drive cooling really needed?

[Rainsford]

I have a question. I have recently been trying to get my computer quieter, and I've been pretty successful so far. But I replaced my power supply fan with an 80mm Panaflo I had, but I had to take it away from blowing on my hard drives and I was wondering if I should get a replacement.

Here's my current setup. I have an Addtronics 6896A case. Right now it is cooled by a Panaflo 92mm exhaust right under the power supply and an 80mm Panaflo exhaust in the power supply. I have a GeForce 4 Ti 4200, SB Live, NIC, 2 Maxtor 7200 RPM hard drives, DVD drive and Plextor CD burner, and an Athlon XP 1800+. Right now the system temp is 29C and the CPU temp is 44C. That seems pretty good, but I no longer have a front intake fan blowing on my hard drives in their hard drive cage. They are right on top of each other, but I'm wondering if I really need a fan blowing on them or not? Any thoughts?

 

[CubicZirconia]

Not really, no. Most people here will tell you its a good idea, which it is. Its definately not absolutely necessary though.

 

[RDMustang1]

Not absolutely necessary unless you have an IBM 75GXP hard drive

 

[gltyrian]

i also agree with the latter... its totally nto necesserily and i feel u when u say how noisy those hd fans are... :-/

 

[Evadman]

Some get really hot. For the cost of a hard drive cooler with a low speed fan ( $3 from the place order from ) you get piece of mind. My 7200 80 gig maxtor gets so hot I can not touch it. Heat is the killer of everything electronical.

As for adding noise, you must be talking about some serious fans! the ones I ghet move about 18 cfm and helps keep the hard drives cooler. Still warm to the touch, but not smoking.

 

[grrl]

What's the best way to cool a HD - having the fan blow down onto the alumium lid, blow up from the bottom onto the PCB and casting or down the length of the HD?