I've lost about three hard drives in the past ten years and it always seems to happen on hot summer days. What is it about Hard Drives and hot weather? Is that the most vulnerable component to hot weather? If so, why isn't there a cooling mechanism available for hard drives? I would think it would be the motherboard that would have problems in the heat but it's always the hard drive. Why is that?

Hard disks are indeed heat-sensitive. A number of cooling solutions are available, and I recommend them for some 7,200 RPM and most faster drives.

Two types of fans which are commonly available are a flat fan which mounts on a drive, and a bay-mounted cooler (usually with 2 or 3 microfans) which takes up one drive space to cool one or two drives.

Because of the tremendous heat ouput of 15,000 RPM drives, "active" cooling has become available. These are basically heatsinks for hard disks, with integral fans.

Thanks TomGL2. Maybe I'll just remove the side of my computer case and point a box fan straight at the components for the rest of the summer. I'm not about to loose another computer due to summer heat!

I know it was probably just a joke, but pointing the fan out of the computer, thus drawing the warm air out, would work better. The other way would bring in tremendous amounts of dust.

Regardless of the fan drawing air from or blowing air into the computer, the amount of air entering the box must be the same as the air exiting. Therefore, the amount of dust either blown or drawn into the case is equal. In this sense, the direction of airflow doesn't matter.

There is another factor, though, and that is turbulence. Air exiting the fan is considerably more turbulent that the air drawn. Because the air blown into a case is more turbulent, there is less tendence for dust to settle and collect.

The old AT standard computers typically used exhaust fans only, with one always on the power supply, and often a case fan mounted at the rear. Air entered through every orifice at a fairly leisurely pace, depositing unbelievable amount of debris (especially in the floppy drives).

The ATX standard, on the other hand, calls for "positive pressure". Intel's guidelines start with at least one intake and exhaust fan, recommending one exhaust for each two or three intake fans (this helps to avoid "hot spots" by keeping airflow uniform). The cases tend to stay significantly cleaner as a result.