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stefanicotine · Feb 5, 2008, 01:09 AM

My MiniStack v3 is like, what ... a month old? And the fan has started to buzz uncontrollably. I know these things are loud, but this is definitely beyond a level of acceptance. I checked to make sure there were no wires caught or rubbing against the fan. There weren't, of course. That would have been too easy. In the end I just unplugged the fan and reassembled the unit.

Now my question to you is whether or not this is a bad thing. I'm running a 500 GB 7200 rpm Seagate drive that I actually pulled out of my FreeAgent. I'm only using it for iTunes and Time Machine, so isn't worked too strenuously. I'm just wondering if this is bad to leave the fan unplugged. I'd hate to fry my hard drive and lose all of it's contents again (I totally lost over 14,000 perfectly tagged songs last week, including my home videos, web site source files, and pictures. Had to start from scratch

)

ginoledesma · Feb 5, 2008, 11:43 AM

Since it's only a month old, you should be able to contact NewerTech for technical support, or return it to the reseller for a replacement. I've removed some fans from my external enclosures to cut down on failing fans and they work well, but then again they're found in a temperature controlled environment so it's not much of an issue.

I have 2 of Seagate 500 7200-rpm SATA drives in my fanless enclosure running in RAID-1. They've been in this setup for the better part of the year and they're still kicking. I'm just hoping they don't die at the same time. The 5-year warranty on these drives should hopefully allow me to get a replacement before both drives kick the bucket.

CharlesS · Feb 5, 2008, 11:47 AM

I dunno, if the enclosure shipped with a fan inside, there's probably a reason for it being in there. I probably wouldn't take it out unless you're willing to risk overheating and hosing the drive.

Gankdawg · Feb 6, 2008, 09:21 PM

I have one of the ministacks (can't remember which) and the fan was constantly cycling. I left the top off of the enclosure and took the temp sensor off of the hard drive. Now I have no fan size and the hard drive temperature feels fine.