[lug] combatting hard drive heat

[D. Stimits]

Mr Viggy wrote:

> You might try to find a peltier element.  I don't know how handy you are
> with electronics, but if you get get a peltier element, you might be
> able to wire it into your power supply.
>
> If you don't know, a peltier element is basically an wlmost paper thin
> device that will get really cold when electricity is passed through it.
>    Those car refrig's ususally have peltier elements in them.
>
> Unfortunately, I really don't know where you might find one the right
> size (sorry!).
>
> Viggy
>
> D. Stimits wrote:
>
> > jd wrote:
> >
> >> On Sat, 2003-02-22 at 23:36, D. Stimits wrote:
> >>
> >> >I've been spending a lot of time reworking an ancient machine that has
> >> >old scsi-uw drives on it, working on a lot of multibooting. All of the
> >> >drives are tiny in comparison to modern standards, the largest being 9
> >> >GB. All drives were manufactured when 7200 rpm was the high speed,
> >> 10000
> >> >rpm didn't even exist. I have 3 of these stacked in a single bay that
> >> >holds 4 half-height units, the top unit is a floppy. The 3 scsi drives
> >> >alone are making the metal cage so hot it can barely be touched
> >> (doesn't
> >> >burn me, but it sure gets uncomfortable after even 2 seconds). The 
> main
> >> >problem is that the drives are touching each other without room 
> for air
> >> >flow, but even if there were room, there isn't any real vent source.
> >> >
> >> >What I'm wondering is if anyone knows of some extremely thin heat
> >> sinks,
> >> >perhaps 2"x2" or 4"x4", that might fit on the side of this cage,
> >> between
> >> >the cage and case wall? Or an extremely thin fan version of this same
> >> >thing that fits between the cage and case wall? It makes me really
> >> >nervous to have hot drives, and I've never lost a drive that was kept
> >> >well-cooled (at least among scsi, even drives close to 10 years old).
> >> >Are there any innovative suggestions here on cooling this 4 unit
> >> >half-height steel bay cage?
> >> >
> >> >D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi DOT com

Peltier seems like the right idea, but I'm not sure if I can get one 
that will fit right for what I'm doing. This is actually a drive cage 
needing cooling (without room for air flow through of front-to-back, 
only sides). On the other hand, I'm not sure I have the power source to 
work with it, I'll have to find some peltier cell that has published 
specs on power. One thing I do know is that a peltier will cause heat 
build-up instead of heat-cooling if the amount of power is less than the 
amount of heat power it must transfer...if it dissipates 25 watts of 
thermal energy at the heat source, then the peltier must be fed greater 
than 25 watts to cool...anything less than 25 watts supplied would cause 
increased heat, rather than decreased heat.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if maybe the floppy has been damaged 
already. The floppy seems to work ok for some things (under linux), but 
all of the windows installs are dying, telling me the floppy is bad (it 
seemed to work ok earlier though). FYI, the windows part is a minor part 
of what I hope will have several linux distros and one windows version 
on it, but all of my windows stuff is so old they require floppies for 
install. So I'm guessing that now I'll have to purchase another floppy 
drive, but I don't want to do that until the heat problems are solved. I 
have a feeling that a peltier would be too expensive.

One place I remember seeing years ago in the Denver area with peltier 
(not bonded to a heat sink or anything, just flat plates) was Gateway 
(not the mass advertised Gateway Computer, but Gateway Electronics), but 
I think they might have gone out of business, not sure.

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi DOT com

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi DOT com