[CIA]

I have a home built firewire CD-RW. I bought both the CD-RW drive (Lite-On 48125W) and a no-name 5 1/4" external firewire 400 enclosure off eBay. The external case came with a fan, which I left hooked up. Now, I don't burn a ton of CD's. I use my internal DVR-105 for general CD/DVD-ROM use. The only time the external is on is when I burn CD-R's or Rip CD's to iTunes.
Do I need that fan hooked up in the case?

[CIA]

Bump

[Wet Jimmy]

Nope. No fan needed. I have a nice Sarotech external CD(VD)-RW case and it has no active cooling. You can put a 7200rpm HD in a case with no active cooling if you really want to.

[CIA]

I actually have a 7200 RPM drive in an external firewire case with no fan at all and it seems OK. Gets a little warm from time to time tho... The difference is that the hard drive has an external powersupply, where as the CD-RW has an internal one. I was unsure if the internal power suppy pumps out more heat then is safe for my CD-RW.

[CIA]

For some reason after the last post it never bumped up to the top. Yes, I reloaded my browser, in fact, I looked on another computer.