Screeching fan in Ultra 31310 ext HD enclosure; IBM DTLA 307

[Nicholas Bodley]

This one is very popular, although not the latest model. Their designer
is nuts. Their LEDs are so bright that just that box alone could light up
a room for a small party. Where one for power and one for drive activity
would do fine, they have five!

Also, the wire between the PC board and the power connector is about
three gauge numbers too heavy, and makes drive installation an imperial
PITA (imperial is worse than royal...) They do shave a few mm off the
outside dimensions that way.

They put in a cheap fan, and it's notorious for screeching after a while.
The oil must be the cheapest available that wont turn into varnish.

Well, surely enough, mine started to screech after a while. Opened it up,
noted hot glue (iirc) used to hold the fan in place (Rest of it is not so
cheap), peeled off the fan label, saw the end of the shaft and its
retaining clip. Gave it a drop or two of Singer sewing machine oil (very
good, btw, apparently), and it's been quiet since, although I haven't
used it a lot, lately.

The screeching happens when the shaft [rattles] really fast inside the
bearing. Make a little circle with thumb and forefinger, and dangle a pun
(pen; too nice a typo to fix) or pencil inside it; leave some space.
Twirl the writing instrument fast, and as it catches inside the hole you
made, it will do a[n] hypocycloidal-style fast wiggle, round and round.
(Is there a name for such motion? I don't think it qualifies for
nutation.)

Remember the IBM DTLA-307030 HDs with a horrifying failure rate some
years ago? The [/.] site had a thread on those at the time. Before I
learned about the problem, I bought one; has a bunch of lovely features.

As in tend to do, when I first powered it up, I used one of lovely little
switchers with a cable that plugs to the HD power connector. (These are
for those USB-to-IDE adapter cables with embedded microprocessors in the
IDE shell) It was out in the open, on top of my subwoofer, which
eternally-temporarily shares the tabletop with my old Compaq Desqpro.

I made sure I was in contact with the die-cast chassis, and put a finger
on the various ICs. One of them got hotter than a one-dollar pistol! I
would have burned my finger mildly had I kept it there. ***Apparently,
this hot running is normal in this drive!!***

I swore, upon all gods that I respect, that I'd never, ever install this
drive without a local breeze blowing past it. I was tempted to install a
little cooling fin with thermally-conductive adhesive, but hadn't decided
what/where I was going to put the drive.

Small wonder that this drive fails when installed in a dead-air location!

I really do hope I'm wrong, but I think a few IBM engineers really lost
it, big time, on this design. If that IC were rated to run at 250 C, may
be; I'm sure it is not.

Hokay, Hitachi starts making HDs, IBM's decided to quit that game. They
come out with a 60-MB version of that design. Surely, they must have
fixed that overheating nonsense? Nope.

=+=+=

I did lots of Web searching, and discovered a company that must be
obscure; they seem to either have a death wish, or else have no marketing
manager. I insist on cooling fans in my external HD enclosures. Company
is AMS Electronics.com, and their trade mark is Venus. They have
flattened the cooling scheme about as much as aerodynamics allows, the
drive goes in so easily it's like night and day compared to Ultra, the
power connector slides easily to accommodate different spacings (and has
a clamp screw), etc., et cetera. One two-chip LED is there if you look
for it; no party illumination for the not-yet-emotionally-mature who are
having fun. (That's OK; just try to grow up before you have serious
responsibilities, such as presidency of a nation.)

One other thing: In this enclosure, the guts are all in a drawer-like
frame that slides like a drawer, retained by two captive hybrid slotted-
or cross-recess ("Phillips") screws. It's great for temporary setups
where you don't want your lovely 2 TB drive out where something can catch
it or smack it. (Dunno whether it can work with 2 TB, but probably.)

Mine is a model DS-2316, specifically B2BK flavor. Try NewEgg, iirc.
Happy with Linux, too. I love it.

--
Nicabod =+= Waltham, Mass.

 

[Wild_Bill]

I hadn't encountered any IBM HDD failures (since I hadn't owned any until I
bought a used laptop), but I think I saw some info stating that Hitachi was
manufacturing the IBM drives even when they were labeled as IBM products.

There is a speific term used for that worn condition in bearings, when they
start making a low frequency growling noise, but I don't remember the term.
I think the chatter or rattle may be a result of the shaft trying to ride
around the inner cirumference of the bearing, instead of just rotating on
it's axis.

I don't recall seeing any of the small motors (approx 2" or less) that don't
fail within a short time, it's just that the cheapest subassemblies are
usually always used to increase the profit margain.
They make a big deal out of claiming tht the product is fan cooled, though.
It will be fan cooled briefly, until it starts making so much noise that I
suppose most users disconnect the fan.
Let's face it, those small fans don't move much air anyway, certainly not
enough to provide an adequate amount of air over and around a HDD for
sufficient cooling.

About the overly bright LEDs.. I dislike the distraction of a bright light
source just to let me know tht something is powered on. I'm usually fully
aware of what equipment I have turned on, particularly when I'm using that
equipment.
One could add a higher value resistor in series with the LED, but I usually
jut put some black tape with a tiny hole in it, or paper label with black
ink over the LED.

I think you were referring to a Venus external drive case with a decent
cooling fan. I have one of those Venus cases that an hold 4 drives (up to
maybe 1.5 TB), and it was a fairly well built accessory. I used it for a
while, then packed it to move, and haven't seen it since. Well, that's the
primary purpose I wanted it for, to store and protect 4 drives from my
previous desktop PCs.
It worked smoothly as an external storage device.

--
Cheers,
WB
..............


"Nicholas Bodley" <n_bod_ley@speakeasy.net> wrote in message
newsan.2009.07.19.23.54.57@speakeasy.net...

This one is very popular, although not the latest model. Their designer
is nuts. Their LEDs are so bright that just that box alone could light up
a room for a small party. Where one for power and one for drive activity
would do fine, they have five!

Also, the wire between the PC board and the power connector is about
three gauge numbers too heavy, and makes drive installation an imperial
PITA (imperial is worse than royal...) They do shave a few mm off the
outside dimensions that way.

They put in a cheap fan, and it's notorious for screeching after a while.
The oil must be the cheapest available that wont turn into varnish.

Well, surely enough, mine started to screech after a while. Opened it up,
noted hot glue (iirc) used to hold the fan in place (Rest of it is not so
cheap), peeled off the fan label, saw the end of the shaft and its
retaining clip. Gave it a drop or two of Singer sewing machine oil (very
good, btw, apparently), and it's been quiet since, although I haven't
used it a lot, lately.

The screeching happens when the shaft [rattles] really fast inside the
bearing. Make a little circle with thumb and forefinger, and dangle a pun
(pen; too nice a typo to fix) or pencil inside it; leave some space.
Twirl the writing instrument fast, and as it catches inside the hole you
made, it will do a[n] hypocycloidal-style fast wiggle, round and round.
(Is there a name for such motion? I don't think it qualifies for
nutation.)

Remember the IBM DTLA-307030 HDs with a horrifying failure rate some
years ago? The [/.] site had a thread on those at the time. Before I
learned about the problem, I bought one; has a bunch of lovely features.

As in tend to do, when I first powered it up, I used one of lovely little
switchers with a cable that plugs to the HD power connector. (These are
for those USB-to-IDE adapter cables with embedded microprocessors in the
IDE shell) It was out in the open, on top of my subwoofer, which
eternally-temporarily shares the tabletop with my old Compaq Desqpro.

I made sure I was in contact with the die-cast chassis, and put a finger
on the various ICs. One of them got hotter than a one-dollar pistol! I
would have burned my finger mildly had I kept it there. ***Apparently,
this hot running is normal in this drive!!***

I swore, upon all gods that I respect, that I'd never, ever install this
drive without a local breeze blowing past it. I was tempted to install a
little cooling fin with thermally-conductive adhesive, but hadn't decided
what/where I was going to put the drive.

Small wonder that this drive fails when installed in a dead-air location!

I really do hope I'm wrong, but I think a few IBM engineers really lost
it, big time, on this design. If that IC were rated to run at 250 C, may
be; I'm sure it is not.

Hokay, Hitachi starts making HDs, IBM's decided to quit that game. They
come out with a 60-MB version of that design. Surely, they must have
fixed that overheating nonsense? Nope.

=+=+=

I did lots of Web searching, and discovered a company that must be
obscure; they seem to either have a death wish, or else have no marketing
manager. I insist on cooling fans in my external HD enclosures. Company
is AMS Electronics.com, and their trade mark is Venus. They have
flattened the cooling scheme about as much as aerodynamics allows, the
drive goes in so easily it's like night and day compared to Ultra, the
power connector slides easily to accommodate different spacings (and has
a clamp screw), etc., et cetera. One two-chip LED is there if you look
for it; no party illumination for the not-yet-emotionally-mature who are
having fun. (That's OK; just try to grow up before you have serious
responsibilities, such as presidency of a nation.)

One other thing: In this enclosure, the guts are all in a drawer-like
frame that slides like a drawer, retained by two captive hybrid slotted-
or cross-recess ("Phillips") screws. It's great for temporary setups
where you don't want your lovely 2 TB drive out where something can catch
it or smack it. (Dunno whether it can work with 2 TB, but probably.)

Mine is a model DS-2316, specifically B2BK flavor. Try NewEgg, iirc.
Happy with Linux, too. I love it.

--
Nicabod =+= Waltham, Mass.

 

[Nicholas Bodley]

On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:43:48 -0400, Wild_Bill wrote:

I think I saw some info stating that Hitachi was manufacturing
the IBM drives even when they were labeled as IBM products.

That seems to agree with what I barely remember.

There is a specific term used for that worn condition in bearings, when
they start making a low frequency growling noise, but I don't remember
the term. I think the chatter or rattle may be a result of the shaft
trying to ride around the inner cirumference of the bearing, instead of
just rotating on it's axis.

That's what I was trying to describe. The shaft doesn't slip inside the
bearing totally, as it normally does; at least partially, it wobbles
violently because it doesn't slip. My kitchen exhaust fan also screeches
on startup.

I don't recall seeing any of the small motors (approx 2" or less) that
don't fail within a short time,

I s.t.r. some good small CPU cooling fans that did last a while, but am
not sure.

Let's face it, those small fans don't move much air anyway, certainly
not enough to provide an adequate amount of air over and around a HDD
for sufficient cooling.

In my Ultra enclosure, not a lot of air moves, but simply replacing the
warm air inside the box is better than none. If the drive needs
relatively-fast-moving air, indeed, these enclosures are not promising.
The Venus is much better, though.

About the overly bright LEDs.. I dislike the distraction of a bright
light source just to let me know that something is powered on. I'm
usually fully aware of what equipment I have turned on, particularly
when I'm using that equipment.
One could add a higher value resistor in series with the LED, but I
usually jut put some black tape with a tiny hole in it, or paper label
with black ink over the LED.

I realized that I don't have anything remotely close to surface-mount
soldering equipment right now, and of course the series resistors are s.m.

I think you were referring to a Venus external drive case with a decent
cooling fan.

True, but one for a single drive.

It worked smoothly as an external storage device.

Not at all surprising.
I really hope they survive the downturn.

Btw, the fan in the single-drive case is quite thin -- think "pancake",
yet it's axial-flow.

Regards,

--
Nicabod =+= Waltham, Mass.