🚀 go-pugleaf

>>how hot does the seagate cheetah run? the ultra/wide scsi drive. 10k rpm
>
>Too hot to run without a cooler of some sort.

A well designed case with both adequate forced air ventilation, as well as
construction using highly thermally conductive materials (a case made of
gold or copper would be ideal, but plain old metal works just fine..) is
able to cool a Cheetah just fine

>>i have a well ventelated case,, will i require a cooler for this drive??
>
>Not if you don't mind buying a new one on a regular basis. Otherwise,
>yes.

Not necessarily.  There is a difference between 'well ventilated', and
'well designed' though.  All the coolers in the world aren't going to help
a Cheetah if it's mounted in plastic because the drive's surface area
simply cannot radiate enough heat to keep itself cool (that's why
conductive cooling is required, and such requirement is explicitly stated
in the Cheetah's manual.).

>>is it possible to make one myself? as theyre a little pricey(yeah i know, if
>>i can afford the drive i should be  able to afford a cooler but im cheap!)
>
>You should be able to do this.

It may not even be necessary.  

>I have a Seagate Barracuda ultra/narrow SCSI at 7200rpm. At first I
>thought I could run it without cooling, but it got much too hot for

Which model?  The most recent 7200RPM Barracuda that gave off a lot of
heat (on-par with the Cheetah) was the ST15150 series.  

>comfort. I simply mounted a fan in the case so that it would be
>blowing directly over the drive, and now the drive is only luke-warm
>to the touch even after it's been running overnight.

How large is your enclosure, and how much metal does your enclosure
contain?  

>Seagate's Barracuda and Cheetah drives are, IMO, among the best
>available (their IDE drives, OTOH, leave much to be desired). However,

Indeed, and the Jaguar will be 'upping' the ante with 14.4kRPM spindle
speeds.   They're fairly close to formally announcing it (even though
there are quite a number of evaluation units already running out there..).

>they are very hot and very noisy (and don't forget very expensive), :)
>so if you don't want a cooler or if you have a problem with some
>noise, consider another brand.

All drives require cooling of some sort -- that's why 90% of all drives
installed in PC's overheat on a regular basis.