Well my only explanation for you beta124 is that the pourous foam which becomes filled with air acts like a heatsink and thus transmits the heat to the air better than the flat surface of the HDD does - Like I said, the temperature lowers, unless my thermometer is wrong (and the thermometers of other websites who reviewed this kind of product, like BitTech)... Like I say... you do the physics or whatever... I dont think the foam was designed with electrical resistance in mind but it doesnt seem to cause any problems... I suppose I could try and check its resistance somehow, but Im not sure if my multimeter is up to that task heh.
I was thinking the same... On thermally conductive foam: I imagine it could work. We tend to think of foam as an insulator (due to the pockets of air) but the foam material itself could carry off some heat. If you really want cool and quiet, you could embed the drive in a "gel-pack" filled with circulating coolant hooked up to a Water Cooling circuit. But that's another story. As for turning vibration energy into heat: I'm sure that the relatively small vibrations of the HD do not pile on the degrees C (or F). We'd be talking about insignificantly small ammounts of heat in this case.
Its not just the foam - i think that if you cut the airflow down around the hard drive the heat will just compound and you end up with a really hot hard drive. I have an IBM deskstar and from what I hear from everyone else, i am amazed it still works!!! I don't want to mess it up by using foam to carry away the heat and not air. Personal opinion. Hey - I have a website - let me review it once you get it done Then I can know for sure.
