10/24 I bought an external USB case for a hard drive, and it came with a
fan attached to the power supply which constantly runs. If I just
have my hard drive in there can't I safely turn the (annoyingly loud)
fan off? thanks
\_ Just get a 2.5" enclosure and spend a bit more for a laptop drive.
Not only is it more transportable, you won't have to worry about a
fan.
\_ Drives can run hot which means you're shortening the life span of
the device. The same is true for all computer stuff. You can run
a 3.2 ghz P4 without a fan, too. It just won't run for more than
a few seconds before it shuts itself off or burns out.
\_ I thought P3s shut themselves down, but P4s and later throttle
its speed down until temperatures falls?
\_ If it was runing 100mhz would you consider that running?
\_ If it's a low-speed drive (5400rpm), then you might safely get
away with it. Anything higher, and what the above poster said is
true. Inside a regular computer case, all your parts depend on the
cooling the multiple fans provide.
\_ Detach fan. Close case. Do continuous read/writes on your hard
disk (defrag? large file copy?). Open case. If drive is too hot
to touch, put fan back on. While it's true that a 3.2 GHz P4 will
stop in a few seconds w/o fan, heat dissipation has varied widely
for 5400, 7200, and 10K drives of different makes and models.
\_ Risky. It's going to take some time for it to really heat up.
It'd be shame if it OP tested cold and then it died over night. |
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