Ghetto-tastic Hard Drive Cooler

Our recent testing of Microsoft's Data Protection Manager hasn't gone so well ... and since we really needed a bunch of drive space this week ... I had Ed pull the DPM "server" and reformat it as a temp fileserver. 

Basically it's a old Gateway P3 800 that we stuffed with a 4 port SATA RAID card and 4 320GB drives.  So including the OS drive that's 5 drives plus the CD-ROM and floppy drive all needing power.  To get the box to boot we had to yank power from the CD and floppy :-)

After Ed had a fresh Server2003 install on the box I started moving files onto it.  Ed had removed the side cover so he could power up the CD-ROM to install the OS and I just happened to place my finger on one of the drives ... it was VERY hot!  We're talking you can't keep your finger on it for more than about 10 seconds!  Not good.  I'm not sure what the operating specs are on those drives, but heat is the enemy of electronics.  Here's the box ... it's doesn't help matters that the drives are all on top of each other ... heat rises baby!

That's the floppy drive sitting inside the case.  We had to move it to put the OS drive in it's place.  It's not powered up, but you never know when you'll need a floppy so it best to keep it with the box :-)

Being a former PC overclocker I'm familiar with techniques to try and keep parts cool.  So I went searching through our computer graveyard for a fan.  An unlikely donor was soon found ... an old Power Computing box.  Anyone remember this company?  This is the ONLY company one of several companies (thanks for the correction Brian) that Apple licensed way back to make Mac "clones".  It flopped big time!

So I yanked the fan and was happy that it powered right up off the Gateway motherboard.  Then yanked the front face of the gateway and it had some nice pencil size holes that would let a fan blow through quite nicely.

Powered the box up and while some air was getting to the drives I wanted more ... so I grabbed some masking tape and found any place where air was getting blown back out ... the result is the creation you see below.

Now all 5 drives are nice and cool even with the side cover on ... only the topmost OS drive has a hint of warmth.  This box is now sitting in the server rack ... and yes, it looks pretty ghetto, but for a temp 960GB fileserver it's doing the job and nice and cool now.

Lesson for the day:  Keep your gear cool.  Especially if you've got several drives in a box check their temp ... you might be surprised how hot they're getting.  I'm a bit embarrased I didn't think about the heat these drives would create when we orginally built this box several months ago...DOH!

Comments

[Kirt Manuel]

Motorola was also licensed to make Mac clones. The sales for both companies were actually decent by Mac sales terms.

[Brian Peat]

when I saw how bold the words ONLY were on there I figured I'd act like a true geek and correct your error :)

Check out this page:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/by_manufacturer/index.html

The only brands I've ever actually seen were PowerComputing (I owned a PTP 250 way back when), Motorola, and the SuperMac, 2 of which I recently gave to a friend to send to his company's plant in China to drive some old printer. We had to put system 7.5.5 on them. Talk about old technology.

Check out the speed on that PowerComputing machine! :)