On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:32:04 -0500 (CDT)
Frederick Bruckman <fredb@immanent.net> wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Aug 2003, Matthias Scheler wrote:
> 
> > In article <Pine.NEB.4.53.0308172154280.4739@tautology.immanent.net>,
> > 	Frederick Bruckman <fredb@immanent.net> writes:
> > > I had a WD 80gb that would silently write erroneous data whenever it
> > > got hot.
> >
> > Are you sure that it is really the disk's fault? That sounds more like
> > something which one of VIA's broken chipsets would cause.
> 
> Hmm. The chipset is an SiS 530, and it's not really 1.6.1, it's 1.6.1
> + selected pull-ups from 1.6.2, to let the drives use UDMA mode 4.
> Forcing them to UDMA mode 2 didn't help, though. Moreover, I don't
> have any such problem with the Seagate ST3120023A. After replacing the
> WD with a Seagate, I haven't seen the problem recur. It's not a very
> good case, either -- any drive in that position gets hot to the touch,
> but the Seagate evidently can handle the heat better.
> 

I did an engineering analysis for a client not too long ago where I did some
comparisons of noise, heat, power consumption and performance of a few
different low-noise systems. Each of them had airflow constrained relative
to a "normal" pc. As part of this task, I found that an 80GB seagate
barracuda vs an 80GB WD drive seemed to be a lot quieter [if mounted
properly] and a bit cooler when compared with the WD. It was also a bit
slower. WD are fine in places where you need the extra speed, but I avoid
them when airflow is constrained. Under normal operating conditions, both
seemed to work fine.

Perhaps you can use a zip tie to place an 80mm fan near the
beastie. That's about $5 compared with drive coolers that cost $15 -  $30
each. Drives are cheap, but it's still a pain to restore/rebuild your
system.

-- 
Harry Waddell
Caravan Electronic Publishing
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