The hi-fi stack is slowly coming together, built from 15mm ply on drawer runners. Looking as though everything will {just} fit although there isn't a lot of leeway. I plan to cut ventilation holes in the shelves, but with (top to bottom) Centre speaker Tivo box HTPC Stero amplifier AV amplifier There is going to be quite a bit of heat generated at times. I am now wondering if additional forced ventilation might be a good idea. The obvious choice seems to be 12v PC case fans blowing up the stack from the bottom through holes in the shelves. This then requires on or more power supplies with suitable connections. I could always cannibalise old PCs for both fans and power supplies but this seems overkill as the PSU will be bulky and have its own fan to keep it cool and you don't really need a PC PSU to drive a few case fans. So is there a simple solution to safely power some case fans? Wall wart with 12v output and some fancy wiring? Alternatives to PC fans? I can see USB powered laptop coolers but these seem a bit OTT and wasteful. Discreet switching would also be desirable as all the power is under the stack below floor level and needs the AV amp sliding out to access. Cheers Dave R

The fan noise would negate the value of having hifi. Usually there is a clearance round the various boxes given in the instructions. I suppose it would be best if the stuff using the most Watts was on top. Shouldn't be as big an issue as years ago when valves were used. Now there was some heat.

Yes. No. And the BackBlaze data doesn't. And the BackBlaze data doesn't.

Cooling for hi-fi stack?

Feb 23, 2015 29 Replies

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meow2222 11 years ago

No data for above 40C (average if you like) is presented, so it tells us nada about such operation. It aint rocket science.

The google survey went to about 40C, and the curve showed a sharp upturn in failures just before 40, suggesting its likely that failuires do rise a lot above 40 - but not proving anything.

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meow2222 11 years ago

Sounds like youre getting this very out of proportion.

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john james 11 years ago

Yes.

No.

And the BackBlaze data doesn't.

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meow2222 11 years ago

No, it doesnt tell anythnig about 40+, there is no 40+ data there.

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john james 11 years ago

It does actually because there is no sharp upturn when the average temps are getting to the high end.

Not data, but clearly when the average temps are at the high end, that must involve some peaks over 40 and so you should see some evidence of a sharp upturn and you don't.

And there is more than just that single BackBlaze paper too.

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meow2222 11 years ago

Since ave temp doesnt exceed 40, we know there is no data presented for where ave temps are at the high end. 40 is just lukewarm.

Re a sharp upturn, we dont know what temp range their drives cover, it could be upto 45, upto 50, upto 80, we dont know.

If they have data covering a wider range it would be good to see it. But I suspect not, server farms typically have well temp controlled discs, unlike smaller operations. This rather limits the usefulness of such data.

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john james 11 years ago

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That turns out to not be the case.

Not in this case.

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meow2222 11 years ago

well, the data shows it is for google & backblaze. Again if you've got server farm for data that goes much higher I bet many of us would be interested to see it

obvioulsy the absence of data above 40 is a huge limitation.

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john james 11 years ago

No it does not with backblaze. There is a wide variation in the temperature of the drives visible in the data.

All you have to do is look at that data, there for all to see.

There is quite a bit of data above 40, sort on Smart_194_raw

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David 11 years ago

Possibly - but then again if I trash £500+ worth of equipment for want of £20 worth of cooling this would not be a good move in the long run.

Cheers

Dave R

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