Home Made External HDD Cooler....

Wasnt sure where to put this, since its no strictly a laptop mod. So if any moderators feel this is better suited to another forum, please fee free to move it....

OK, For any modder's out there....

I have 2 External HDDs - both the same make and size (1TB each).

Although I keep them sligtly seperated, they naturally get pretty hot when in use, since I use them togetherthrough a USB Hub. Im therefore thinking of creating a home made cooling solution....

Im looking at making a small stand for the drives to sit on top of - they are vertical standing Western Digital My Book drives shown below...



Beneath this stand I will mount a fan, that pushes cool air up into the drives - since the edges of the drives have plenty of air holes to aid cooling. This should cool the drives, while push the heat in its natural direction - upwards and out of the holes above.

This is the fan Im looking to get, since its size will cover the surface area of both drives together, and its quiet.....

http://www.thermaltake.com/product/DCfan/Combo/a2330/a2330.asp



The fan comes with a 3 pin power cable, for mounting on a mainboard, as the link above shows.

Anyone know how I can re-wire this to a USB connection, so that I can connect it to he same hub the external drives are connected to?? This way, every time I power up the hub and the drives, the fan will also come on..... The USB hub is also a powered hub with a conection to the mains socket, so power requirements shouldnt be an issue....

 

My WD MyBook external drive can pass air through. why not buy a cheap notebook cooler with 2 fans and just set them on the fans?

Are you running this off of a desktop or a powered USB hub?

 

It would run off of a powered USB hub.
Ive considered the Zalman NC1000 notebook coler, and I can just sit them on top of that. I was just trying somet cheaper! lol
Looks like I'll end up buying the cooler then!

 

Buying a whole cooler for 2 drives is pretty excessive. Why not just get a 120mm or 80mm fan and set it beside the 2 drives? Total cost would be dollars and cents. Only downside is that you'll have to place the drives horizontally side by side or on top of each other to save space

Heres my kindergarten diagram:

 

This was my initial plan with the fan above - I just need a silent fan with a connector that can be re-wired to USB....

 

To make the fan USB powered, you just need to cut the mainboard connector off the fan, and then pull some of the insulation of the red and black wires off until they're showing the little copper wires inside. Leave any other wires on the fan alone. Then get the usb cable, and cut off the other end. Then strip off some of the wire's insulation. Inside of the insulation, there should be a silver looking fat wire. That isn't the wire, it's just a wrapping around the real wires. Take off the silver and pull it down. Then find the red and black wires. Now these wires are really easy to cut, so be careful. There will be four different wires inside the USB cable. Just take off the insulation off the black and red wires exposing their copper wiring, and then leave the rest of the wires alone. Then match the black wires on the USB cable and the fan (the copper parts), and the red wires on the USB cable and then fan (copper parts), and then wrap it up with electric tape. Plug it into a USB port, and you're done.

If I'm not clear enough, google DIY usb powered fan.

 

I second FatMangosLawl's suggestions and steps. In fact, I just modified my own old broken cooler's fan to work with an usb today. It was a bit geeky. oh well, I had fun using it to cool off my hot TV tuner.

 

I'll try that!
Cheers!

 

Here you go with colors picture ID's all you need to know.
http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml

However, I suggest you find a 5V fan. The one you have is 12V, at 5V it might not function properly. But there is another solution if you want to be real clever. Grab some 12v fans a switch a little project box and a AC/DC 12V power adapter. A little wiring job and you'll have one heck of a cooler.

I did the very thing for an projector cooler using two 80mm 12V fans.

 

Ooooo noisy?

 

No actually pretty silent, not to mention when it's running the room's being pumped with sound.

 

Yes. Fair point although movies do have quiet parts!

 

Movies? What are those? I was talking about Call of Duty or TF2 on a 100" screen!

But still it's silent enough to not notice. A lot of fan noise comes from the air being pushed though a fan grill or mess. With this unit since it's away form any possible contact, it doesn't have any installed, thus helping it be quieter.

 

100 Feet!?!?!? Where can i get me one of them?

 

you should see my external harddrive cooler, it is really awesome. It has two fans in it, and its all custom made, external enclosure and everything. I love perforated steel, its so fun to make things with it.

K-TRON

 

DOAH!! mistyped that one " edit made!!

100' would be something, maybe playing from the cars roof top!