3.5" Hard Drive Enclosure - does material and orientation make a difference?

Whiffle · 9 May 2023 at 11:32

Hi there.

I have a WD 14TB Elements Workbook (external HDD), plugged into my server, that I use for main storage.

I also have a spare 6TB WD Red that I want to start using for backups, so I need a HDD enclosure for it.

1. With hard drive enclosures, are they are much the same or should I look for anything specific? I have read that plastic ones can cause them to overheat, so aluminum is preferable. I also read that enclosures that stand on their side are better than flat as there is more surface area for the heat to come off. Might little real-world difference but would appreciate your thoughts.

2. Do the Workbook enclosures provide decent enough cooling or should I consider switching them around, so that the 14TB goes in the new enclosure instead? I really want the best case for the 14TB, as the other is only for backups.

Ormy1 · 9 May 2023 at 11:43

Depends on your usage. If you will be writing to the drive continuously for a few hours, you might want a metal case, or a plastic one with plenty of ventilation. Orientation doesn't really make a difference. If you're only giving the drive very light use, i.e. only a few minutes of sustained reading or writing at a time then any enclosure should be fine.

The enclosure should 100% provide enough cooling for the drive it is supplied with, if not than I'd be returning it under warranty as faulty.

You can keep an eye on drive temps easily with any PC monitoring software. Crystal Disk Info is a good one for monitoring hard drives. Sustained temps above 40-45 are not ideal, the drives will be rated to 55C but the cooler the better, 35C and under would be ideal.

Whiffle · 9 May 2023 at 11:56

Thanks very much for that.

I was looking at dual bay enclosures but they seem overly expensive for what they are.

Great to know that orientation makes little difference - TBH, the Workbook enclosure scares me a bit as it is not particularly stable. I would prefer something flat if possible, just in case.

Ormy1 · 9 May 2023 at 12:50

If it were me I'd just install both drives internally. That way they benefit from the cooling already (presumably?) available within the servers case and are protected by being screwed into the structure of the server case. Unless there is a need for portability I always feel a drive is safer being inside the PC case.

Deleted member 77746 · 9 May 2023 at 13:00

Make sure you don't put the drive upside down, the data might fall off.

Whiffle · 9 May 2023 at 13:02

Completely agree - unfortunately, my server is a mini pc so all my hard drives have to be external.

GaryTheSnail said:
Make sure you don't put the drive upside down, the data might fall off.

Don't they have special Australian HDDs that can handle that?

JasonM · 9 May 2023 at 13:40

Whiffle said:
I also read that enclosures that stand on their side are better than flat as there is more surface area for the heat to come off. Might little real-world difference but would appreciate your thoughts.

Aluminium HDD bracket is better for cooling however airflow around the HDD is still the priority. Between plastic with good airflow, and aluminium with poor airflow, the latter will be worse.

Yes sideways mounted HDD's cool better.

One advantage of the aluminium bracket is better grounding as HDD's were designed when everything was mounted to metal, however how much this makes in reality I'm not sure. I own a number of Silverstone FT-02 cases that use plastic HDD mounting, and have added small grounding strips to ground the HDD's to the case.

Whiffle · 9 May 2023 at 14:26

Thanks Soldato - really helpful.

Is it worth taking into account the chip on the enclosure as well?

I am looking at a couple at the the moment and one uses a ASM225CM chip, whereas the second uses ASM1153E - is there any real difference between these and should I factor it into my decision?

Ormy1 · 10 May 2023 at 09:20

Whiffle said:
I am looking at a couple at the the moment and one uses a ASM225CM chip, whereas the second uses ASM1153E - is there any real difference between these and should I factor it into my decision?

According to below link, no. Also from my educated guess, no. You might see a difference if you were using a fast SATA SSD, not with HDDs.

USB 3 to SATA adapter: ASM1153 vs ASM225 performance?

So I just got two 16TB Seagate Exos drives that I need to attach to my computer via USB. I have a couple of old Seagate Expansion enclosures from shucked 6TB drives - I tried them and they worked f...

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