TR Forums

Hi,

I have several SCSI harddisks (3 IBM and 1 Maxtor now), and they all die within a year to 2 years. I guess that's not normal and I'm wondering what the cause can be. Any suggestions?
The harddisks are not cooled but the case is open 24/7.

It wouldn't hurt to put a fan blowing the hot air out from around them. Doesn't have to be a very powerful case fan, just something to get the air flowing.

Just because the case is open does not mean the drives are staying cool.

IBM drives do tend to run much hotter than the average SCSI drive, the one I have can get hot enough to burn me even with a cooling fan blowing directly on it. The other few SCSI drives I have do not get anywhere that hot. To know for sure, I would let them run and see how hot they are getting, and if they are very hot get a fan blowing on them ASAP. Plus with the case open, you can actually hurt airflow due to the air not flowing through the case properly.

Open case doesn't mean the drives will run cooler. In fact with many cases, leaving the side off will actually make the hard drives run hotter because with the side off, cool air isn't being sucked past the drives by the exhaust fans. Feel the drives after they've been running for a while -- are they hot to the touch? If so, then you've got a hard drive cooling problem.

Heat, vibration, and crappy power are a hard drive's worst enemies. Repeated cycling up and down are bad for them too, and will shorten their life. So to summarize, if you want to get the longest life out of your hard drives, do the following:

- Make sure the drives are adequately cooled. This doesn't necessarily mean active cooling; in fact what I sometimes do is mount them in a 5-1/4" bay (with adapter rails), and drill some holes in the faceplate of the bay. The PSU and case exhaust fans then draw air in through the faceplate, and over the drive. You'd be really surprised how much cooler hard drives run with just this simple mod.

- Don't put the system on a wobbly desk, table or cart. Just bumping your chair into your desk, or slamming a drawer can cause vibrations which are not good for your hard drives.

- Use a UPS for your power (or at the very least, a good surge suppressor).

- Leave the system running 24x7, to minimize the number of spinup/spindown cycles. Disable hard drive power management too, if it is enabled.

Actually, AFAIK, the part of the harddrive that takes the most beating when you startup/spin up the thing is the electronics. But if have it running 24/7, it is the mechanical, moving parts that takes the beating. So it all depends on the quality of the drive, and which part of those that is prone to give up first (AFAIK, usually the mechanics).

But what kind of SCSI drives are we talking about anyway? SCSI drives usually are stubborn as hell, so it should take quite much to have them just give up on you. But if it is a very cramped case, maybe the heat actually gets to much for them, as they have said above.

FubbHead wrote:

Actually, AFAIK, the part of the harddrive that takes the most beating when you startup/spin up the thing is the electronics. But if have it running 24/7, it is the mechanical, moving parts that takes the beating. So it all depends on the quality of the drive, and which part of those that is prone to give up first (AFAIK, usually the mechanics).

Depends on the drive. Most hard drives allow the heads to "land" on a dedicated area of the platters whenever the drive spins down; this amounts to a controlled head crash, and causes some (minor) mechanical wear of the heads. IIRC some IBM models physically retract the heads away from the platters whenever the drive spins down, but I believe this behavior is the exception rather than the rule.

Most drives are rated for some maxium number of spinup/spindown cycles... check the detailed specs. If you've got power management enabled with a short timeout, it is possible that you could exceed the rated number of cycles after just a couple of years of use.

But what kind of SCSI drives are we talking about anyway? SCSI drives usually are stubborn as hell, so it should take quite much to have them just give up on you. But if it is a very cramped case, maybe the heat actually gets to much for them, as they have said above.

As I've already mentioned, running with the side of the case off will actually decrease hard drive cooling in many cases, by disrupting the normal airflow pattern. I have noticed that my hard drives heat up if I run with the case open for extended periods of time.

They are in a mini cube server case with the side off because there aren't much venting holes in the case and thus the airflow would just stay in the case I think. But you're right, those IBM's can come damn hot.
I used to have a hdd cooler attached to them but I removed them because I thought the magnetic field of the fans could hurt the drives.
I also have a generic 350 W PSU with 4 SCS hdd's and a classic athlon attached to it. Maybe that has something to do with it too.

I don't use power management and I only turn on and off my computer once a day (unless I need to reboot of course).

In the mini cube case, the harddisks are separated from the mobo, they're on the other side because the cube is divided into half. 1 half for the mobo and cards and other half for the hdd's, so the drives are behind my mobo, just below the PSU.

I doubt that the magnetic field from the fan motors would affect the hard drives at all. The vibration from the fans might though. That's why I prefer passively vented drive bays...

just brew it! wrote:

I doubt that the magnetic field from the fan motors would affect the hard drives at all.

As long as your using computer fans, that would most likely be the case, because they are designed not to emit strong magnetic feilds...

just brew it! wrote:

I doubt that the magnetic field from the fan motors would affect the hard drives at all. The vibration from the fans might though. That's why I prefer passively vented drive bays...

Gonna mount an extra fan... my case is also on the ground, so it has a stable base.