"John Doe" wrote in message


Arny, I think you analogy is incorrect.

OK

Yes, CPUs and hard drives
especially the 7200 RPM drives run hotter than drives and CPU's 10
years ago. But, that is why today's CPU's also come with a heat
sink/fan that is like 20 time larger than the CPU so that they don't
run that hot.

I guess you missed the part where I made statements based on chip
temperatures, or perhaps you don't understand the significance of chip
temperatures.

CPU chip temperatures are a measure of how good of a job the heat sink and
fans do, as compared to the heat that the CPU chip dissipates. IOW, by
making my statements in terms of CPU chip temperatures, I'm already
including the benefits of that larger fan and heat sink.

Without that fan and heat sink the CPU would burn up.

No doubt.

The same is true of a hard drive. The difference is that an internal
drive is cooled by the fans in the case and if you will notice
today's cases allow for a considerably larger number of fans than
cases 10 years ago.

No doubt. Do you think you're telling me something I don't know?

Now Maxtor decides to cram a drive they know runs
hot and they don't both to put a fan in the very snug fitting case.

That's not Maxtor's fault, its the fault of whoever assembled the computer.

All computer devices have an specific operating temperature.

Right, but are you suggesting that I don't know that, or somehow didn't
include my knowledge of that in my comments?

The simple fact is Maxtor screwed the pooch with their external
drives by being too damn cheap to put in a $3 fan which would have
kept the thing cool.

That's not Maxtor's fault, its the fault of whoever assembled the computer.

To make matter worse the drive in my case was
mounted to a metal plate along entire bottom of the drive which
trapped the heat in.

Maxtor didn't do that, the fault of whoever assembled the computer.

This, was another stupid design, if it was
design to work as a heat sink (I don't think that is what it was
there for, I think was there to keep the drive from becoming loose on
the connectors) then it does a very crappy job.

But, its not Maxtor's fault. They make drives, they don't assemble
computers.

You can buy whatever you like. But, if I am going to spend that kind
of money on an external drive and I am going to make sure that it
isn't a Maxtor brand and that it has a $3 fan in the case.

Oh, you're talking about an external drive? Why didn't you say that up
front?

Plain and simple. The cooler you keep your computer the longer it will
live and
the more reliable it will be.

Do you think you're telling me something I don't know?

This is why my full tower case have 16
fans, and why I bought a small air compressor to keep them and
everything else cleaned out.

If you've got a wonderful case like that, why are you screwing with external
drives?