"Cool" external FW800 Hardd Drive...?

[Buzz]

deckeda wrote:
Swapping out the drive for him will help him more, because he won't have to futz with the fan, I don't think.

On the other hand, if it's speed that's important, since he's using FW800, maybe a green drive won't satisfy.

The Seagate is now a few years old, and I've had success w/ some newer green drives, but haven't done any real speed comparisons... the FW800 is used because it's the startup drive... the kid gleeped the Mini to replace his PPC tower, and the Mini was set up as our media center previously on the internal drive, so he's not allowed to use the internal. I guess the question should be, what's the coolest running, best performing green drive? 1TB is probably fine.

///

[deckeda]

Buzz wrote:
... I guess the question should be, what's the coolest running, best performing green drive? 1TB is probably fine.

Can't say. And I suspect that as a group there shouldn't be much difference in power consumption or performance. And while a larger, newer drive that's green might even perform better than what's in there now, I wouldn't spend much time seeing which one is better performing. That's like asking, "I really want an economy car but which one is fast?"

As always, look for capacity/$ too. You might find that a 1.5TB or 2TB is a better value than a 1TB these days.

As a fallback, before buying, consider also if you have another use for a new 3.5" drive anywhere---in case this doesn't fix his issue and it still gets too hot. Just sayin'.

[bazookaman]

...or...tell him to shove his resistance to a computer specific fan and either use one or don't use the computer.

I mean really. If you lived in the middle of nowhere where the thought of buying a fan involved an airplane and a team of mules, then yes, I can see not wanting a fan. But come on. Resistance to a computer specific fan? Who's in charge here?

[Buzz]

bazookaman wrote:
...or...tell him to shove his resistance to a computer specific fan and either use one or don't use the computer.

I mean really. If you lived in the middle of nowhere where the thought of buying a fan involved an airplane and a team of mules, then yes, I can see not wanting a fan. But come on. Resistance to a computer specific fan? Who's in charge here?

Clearly our 6' 3", 210# Baby Buzz is in charge. I put one of the small fans on his desk and told him to use it, but there's a disconnect in our house between a parent telling the child to do something, and the child actually doing it. :-)

Fry's has 2TB SATA3 Hitachi Coolspin for $62 vs. 1TB SATA2 Hitachi 7200rpm for $50, obvious "better value" to go green. Other greens here are all backup duty; haven't gone green for startup yet... just don't like the idea of kid's computer crashing. If I knew only harm from crashes would be to external drive; that would be OK, but I feel the Mini needs somebody to look after it, too.

///

[deckeda]

And why is his startup drive an external?

[Buzz]

deckeda wrote:
And why is his startup drive an external?

Kid gleeped our media center Mini for his usage because he thought his PPC tower was getting long in the tooth... read that, Intel Mini does better games. Told kid he needed to use external, and locked up internal from his use, as I was the one that moved all his data from the old tower to the external to use w/ the Mini.

///