Home made cooler for Astone RD230 hard drive enclosure

Hard drive is a device for storing and retrieving digital information. In the Era of High Definition, hard drive space just does not seem to enough. I vaguely recall my first desktop only has 6.4GB of space, and I never fill it up. Now, even my key-size USB drive has 8GB of space. 

If you have seen my previous posts, I have set up an old HP DC7800 as my HTPC, so number of internal hard drive is restricted to two due to the limited SATA ports and space. I have been using generic brand hard drives for years. Prior to the recent upgrades, I owned three 1TB external hard drives. These hard drives just take up too much of space so I decided to replace them with one single 3TB hard drive. Despite of buying single 3TB external hard drive, I opt for an external enclosure that will take two 3TB hard drives so I will have 6TB in a case. Having survey the external enclosure prices for weeks, I decided to go for a dual-bay external enclosure from Astone that only costs AUD 45 in local PC store. The model is Astone ISO RD230. it made of aluminium alloy case claimed to dissipate the heat better. It has USB 3.0, fully compatible with SATA I and II hard drives. In addition, it also supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD (just a bunch of drives).

Since this is a fanless design enclosure, I decided to go for low-power Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB hard drive. WD Caviar Green is a new series hard drive that is designed with environment in mind (make sense to call it green). Caviar Green generates less heat and uses less power compared to normal hard drive. This design however comes with a price, it runs at 5400 rpm instead of 7200 rpm in normal hard drive. Caviar Green therefore might run slower than conventional hard drive.

Astone RD230 external enclosure

Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB

My first impression of Astone RD230 when I received it was bad. I think it has stupid design as the screws used to lock the hard drive bracket are small and difficult to hold property with screw driver.

To install hard drive bracket back to the enclosure, you have to hold the case, let the bottom facing down when you put the screws back. This is because if you put the enclosure bottom facing up as shown in the picture above, the screws are too short to reach the hard drive bracket. 

Second, the hard drive indicator light connector is positioned in a awkward location. When you open the hard drive enclosure, there is one connector connects the indicator light cable from the front to the electronic board at the back of the case. This connector is small and flimsy, you have to use precision screwdriver to pull it out or install it back. 

Well, guess that's what I should be expecting from the cheapest 2-bay external enclosure I could find. 

Caviar Green with hard drive bracket in Astone RD230

Indicator light connector and main board

Upon the installation, the new external hard drive runs quite well. My only complain is the amount of heat generated is slow to dissipate. Using a software called CPUID HW monitor, the external hard drive constantly goes near to 50 degree Celsius. I know the temperature is well within the working range (<60), but I don't like the hard drive goes anyway near to 50, so I decided to make a USB powered fan attaches to the front part of the enclosure, hoping that the fan will draw more air into the case and reduces the hard drive temperature. 

I ordered two 12V DC fans from ebay (AUD2.50 for both). then wind up cables according to their polarity: black to black, red to red. Then I recycled an old USB cable, cut it open and reveals 4 cables inside (red, black, white and green). Get rid of green and white and connect the red cable from USB to red cable from the fan and the same for black cable. Once you plug in the USB port, the fan should run. 

DC fans ordered online (5cm)

Wind the cables with same polarity together

Inside USB cable once rubber cover is removed

There are 4 wires inside a USB cable

Next, I cut out a cardboard that is large enough to cover the front part of the external exclosure. At the centre of the cardboard, 2 holes with the size of DC fan were made. DC fans then were glued to the card board with blowing side facing the external enclosure.

stick the fans to the cover

making fan cover with holes

Lastly, just use some black tapes to stick the fans to the front cover of the external enclosure. I know it does not look very good.

Stick the DC fans with cover to the external enclosure

So, how well does the home made cooler work? I did some tests using the CPUID I mentioned above, without the fan, hard drive ran around 47 degrees. Once the fans were installed, it ran between 40-41 degrees.

WD Caviar Green temperature Before and After the fans installation

Despite of the temperature drops, it is still slightly away from my ideal temperature, which is below 40 degree. I figure the ventilation might work better if I drill some holes on the plastic barrier placed between the hard drive and the fans. I don't have any drilling tool now, so gonna wait for a bit.