Question How many watts does a hard drive consume and how much heat does it produce?

[consptheory77]

I am going to build a new desktop system this year to replace my rapidly aging Haswell build from 2015. The Haswell motherboard only has three SATA ports, but I use my desktop as media server, among other things, and I have five external USB drives attached, three inside the case. Now, with the new build, I've considered to get an enterprise drive, something that's 16TB or so, an Iron Wolf or an Exos, for purposes of consolidation. But I considered last night that if one of these drives fail (and I could only afford one instead of two to mirror each other) it's going to be a real pain, even if have the media backed up on disc. Since the Z790 board I'm planning to get will have 7 SATA and 4 M.2, and the case will be large, I can just port my 2 and 4 TB drives over to the new system. However, this raises questions of cooling and power. If I already have three intake fans and an exhaust with the new case, should I add more fans to cool the hard drives? If I max out the storage, what should I figure I need to add in watts? I'm already at 525 watts with a 850 PSU with the new prospective build. I figure a max of 10 watts per drive, if that, so that still puts me under. But with the old build, six external drives was sometimes too many, a drive would drop out. Once I removed one of the drives, the problem ceased, so I assume six externals drives were simply drawing too much power, even though I have a 750 watt PSU on the Haswell build. I'm guessing the variable is USB power delivery, but all these drives will be just fine inside the Z790, but I wanted to check with people who know more.


2023 Raptor Lake Build

 

[Karadjgne]

You assume it's a power issue. Most likely it's a USB issue, too much bandwidth soaked up. The chipset can only assign so much. Windows can have upto 26 drives (A-Z) but that's assuming partitioned physical drives etc.

HDD can soak upto @ 35w, depending on the drive, usually averaging @ 8w-15w for the 1Tb.

 

[consptheory77]

You assume it's a power issue. Most likely it's a USB issue, too much bandwidth soaked up. The chipset can only assign so much. Windows can have upto 26 drives (A-Z) but that's assuming partitioned physical drives etc.

HDD can soak upto @ 35w, depending on the drive, usually averaging @ 8w-15w for the 1Tb.

You're right, I didn't even think about bandwidth. Well, I'm guessing newer model motherboard means more bandwidth. I see now there is something called DMI

DMI/UMI and you! A guide to your motherboard's chipset bandwidth.

and Alder Lake introduces DMI 4.0

'Alder Lake' and the New Z690 Chipset: Is This Intel's Most Innovative Platform in a Decade?

but if HDD can soak up to 35W, and I'm already at 525 without them, add 7 SATA drives @35, it brings me pretty close to the 825 watt PSU limit, should I buy a 1000 watt unit for overhead? As I also might want to upgrade the GPU at some point, and some of the 1000 watt units have the ATX 3 and the PCI 5 features the newer graphics cards will use.

 

[USAFRet]

Why don't you put some of these external drives into a 4 bay enclosure?

 

[consptheory77]

Why don't you put some of these external drives into a 4 bay enclosure?

Back then? Because those bays are expensive, and I had already spent money on the drives. The Rosewill case housing the Haswell build could have accommodated eight drives, but the motherboard I bought would not. It was my first build, I didn't even think about such things at the time.

In the meantime, over the past years? The prospect was still too expensive in comparison to other things I wanted to buy.

Now? The Lian Li Lancool III I'm planning to get says there is capacity for 12 HDD, although only four of those are slots for 3.5 drives, but then that effectively is the same as the external four bay enclosure?

 

[USAFRet]

Back then? Because those bays are expensive, and I had already spent money on the drives. The Rosewill case housing the Haswell build could have accommodated eight drives, but the motherboard I bought would not. It was my first build, I didn't even think about such things at the time.

In the meantime, over the past years? The prospect was still too expensive in comparison to other things I wanted to buy.

Now? The Lian Li Lancool III I'm planning to get says there is capacity for 12 HDD, although only four of those are slots for 3.5 drives, but then that effectively is the same as the external four bay enclosure?

An external enclosure has its own power supply, and connects via a single USB or Thunderbolt port.

I have a 4 bay MediaSonic. In 24/7 use since 2017, currently attached to my NAS.
About $100.

In my use case, rarely am I trying to write to multiple drives in it at once, so everything going through a single USB connection isn't a real limiting factor.

 

[consptheory77]

An external enclosure has its own power supply, and connects via a single USB or Thunderbolt port.

I have a 4 bay MediaSonic. In 24/7 use since 2017, currently attached to my NAS.
About $100.

In my use case, rarely am I trying to write to multiple drives in it at once, so everything going through a single USB connection isn't a real limiting factor.

I see online there, for example, a Media Sonic 4 bay for under $100. That's a reasonable price, but...it's circa 2010. (but people are still buying it)

"needs either an 3.1 or eSata bracket in your computer. even if you have a bracket, your board must support FIS and port replicator to see all the drives and take advantage of the faster speeds"

so that means more or less likely to encounter problems with a newer build?

"VERY noisy fan and you MUST have the fan up and keep the box dust free or there will be heat problems"

well, I'll blow the dust in my desktop about once a month, so that part is ok, and I don't mind white noise, but...some fan noise can be annoying regardless of volume

The newer media boxes are around at least $200 and that's more than I want to pay and why I avoided them back then.

 

[USAFRet]

I have the older version of this:
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-PROBOX-SATA-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B09WPPJHSS

This one, to be specific: (24/7 use since Aug 2916)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X26VV4

The fan is NOT noisy.
I can access each drive individually.
Not a problem with my QNAP NAS, or connected directly to my new WIn 11 Ryzen 5 system.

My only real complaint with it is the brightness of the blue LEDs on the front.

 

[consptheory77]

The newer model seems like a reasonable price, too. Though if I can leave the drives in the desktop case (I can consolidate to four HDD), why shouldn't I?

Yes, the LEDs! I wonder why manufacturers think I want RGB when I already have these tiny lights from the speaker and the desktop and TV, not to mention the external storage connected to the Xbox, which randomly turns on a bright RGB array (always at night) even though I've set the Xbox and it to sleep!

 

[Karadjgne]

Lighting can have uses. I have Zero RGB in my pc. The only lighting is the tiny blue led in the power button. All except for the RGB which is part of the mobo. This I put to use, since my case is perforated on all sides, only solid in front/back. The RGB shines through the right panel, directly onto the wall, and I have it set to temp ranges. I can tell at a peripheral glance if the pc is cool (green), warm (yellow) or hot (red) and roughly how deep the range since it'll glow green/yellow or yellow/red.

 

[USAFRet]

The newer model seems like a reasonable price, too. Though if I can leave the drives in the desktop case (I can consolidate to four HDD), why shouldn't I?

Yes, the LEDs! I wonder why manufacturers think I want RGB when I already have these tiny lights from the speaker and the desktop and TV, not to mention the external storage connected to the Xbox, which randomly turns on a bright RGB array (always at night) even though I've set the Xbox and it to sleep!

You can leave them in the PC if you wish.

I just mentioned that 4 bay as a power and port alternative.
It works quite well for me, especially for basic media storage.

 

[consptheory77]

if I can leave the drives in the desktop case (I can consolidate to four HDD), why shouldn't I?

Powering a ton of drives...

"The power required to pin up multiple drives at the same time is relatively huge. That's why file servers tend to use "staggered start up" when using old platter drives."

On the other hand...

Power Supply for 10+ HDD's, do I need anything special?

"Hdd's can use ~30w when spinning up but use under 10w in normal usage."

So I'd conclude that a 850W would be more than enough, and if per chance it wasn't, it's not like anything would be hurt, the drives would just form a queue until they all got started up

but it's also an argument for why you might want to have them running outside the case