[dinkdink]

Hello All,
I just got a firewire enclosure for a 120 gb western digital hard drive that I once had in a windows machine. It has a fan on the enclosure and I disconnected it from the little circuit board inside so it didn't run. I was curious if I needed this fan to keep the drive cool or if I could leave it unplugged. I have seen some enclosures that do not have fans or ones that are aluminium and don't need fans. This one is plastic, I don't know if that makes a difference or not.
One more question, if I leave the firewire drive on all the time, is there anyway to make it go to sleep at a certain time or when it is not in use, or does that fact that it is just not being accessed good enough for keeping the heat down.
Just for your information, I am using this drive as a music drive to store all my mp3s on.
Thanks for all your help!
Dink

[dinkdink]

bump, please help...

[zigzag]

Can't answer the first question. My FW enclosures (from OWC) don't have fans but there might be something about your enclosure that requires one. Try it and see if it starts running hot.

I leave the power on all the time. I think that's fine as long as the drives are able to spin down.

[Macola]

Does the enclosure contain the power supply transformer? If so, you need the fan. If not (the power supply is an an external brick) then you shouldn't have a problem disconnecting the fan.