Thread: Hard Drives in cold weather?

Yes. I installed mine in Jan of this year, in the middle of a Canadian winter. The player worked fine the whole time. I started it up in the morning and let it boot while I was warming up my car. I also started it up in the cold several times per day, all without a problem. The only real worry is condensation forming when you open the door. But, if your case has a good fan and your HD is fairly warm then it shouldn't be an issue.

I am from London, Ontario. Interstingly enough, my hard drive failed when I was in Cleveland in June for the 2000 DeLorean Auto Show. However, I attribute this failure to a drive manufacturing defect in the control board, as there was no indication of physical damage to the disc surface when it failed. That said, Cleveland may be a bad place for hard drives :-) By the way, Quantum replaced my drive on warrenty...

------------------
Aaron Cake
London, Ontario, Canada

Player: Cyrix 200, 32MB RAM, 10.2Gig Quantum HD, Onboard EtherNet/Sound/Video, Custom Lexan Case, Arise DC-DC, Win95 Kernal w/Custom Player
Car: '86 Mazda RX-7 w/Basic Performance Upgrades

Actually, condensation will NOT be a problem unless you track all kinds of snow into the car. In the winter, the air gets cold as we all know (some of us all too wel). As the air gets cold, it loses its capacity to hold water in suspension. Therfore, the relative humidity is much lower than in the warmer months.

The problem remains however; if you track snow into your vehicle. Simple solution to this invloves turning up the heat and leaving your windows open just a crack .. (the humidity will escape to the cold environment)

Moral of the story. Consensation is almost NEVER a problem! Esp. because distilled (condensed) water doesnt conduct electricity.

Oh sure, you could get hyper anal and say well, what about ionization or oxidation causing ions to be disolved into solution thuc causing an electrolytic capacity? I say bah to you! In my past experiences as a fanatical overclocker with 2^x peltier units, condensation has never caused a problem (even though I insulated the cpu etc. I did wet test the system).

SOOO ... there 8-)

That sounds cool!
I'm not really worried about condensation. I have face plates over all three bays, I might consider making a fan face plate just for the summer. Without air blowing over the hdds there is a very less chance of it happening.
Hay do ata 66's, like the 10.2Gig Quantum, get all to much hotter than and older 1.2 gig segate or somthin?

nicksmurf: Yes, ATA66 drives to run hotter than normal drives. Note that you probably don't even need ATA66 capability as all you are doing is plying MP3s.

------------------
Aaron Cake
London, Ontario, Canada

Player: Cyrix 200, 32MB RAM, 10.2Gig Quantum HD, Onboard EtherNet/Sound/Video, Custom Lexan Case, Arise DC-DC, Win95 Kernal w/Custom Player
Car: '86 Mazda RX-7 w/Basic Performance Upgrades