EMF Survivability [HDD and Electronics]

[Cunjo]

I'm considering buying a compact high-velocity fan driven by a powerful electric motor for use on my desk to help remove some of the heat generated by the laptop computer... the trouble is, it would be in very close proximity to my laptop, and both onboard and external HDDs as well as any other potentially sensitive electronics.

My question is, about how resilient would the hardware be to an electro-magnetic field generated by such a device? Is there a particular milligauss level I need to avoid? and finally, is there a way I can measure it without buying an expensive meter?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Cunjo]

bumpage...

*bump*

 

[suicide007]

...it sounds to me like you're overreacting a little. But, i guess if it was me, i would be a little concerned. Try calling the laptop company.

 

[Cunjo]

It's a really expensive HDD, and the data on it can't be replaced...

I'm going to take another look at the fan and see if the magnetic shielding really is as bad as it looks...

 

[Apokalipse]

if the data is that important, I'd suggest you get 2 drives, and put them in a Raid 1.

Raid 1: both drives have identical copies of the data. so if one drive fails, you have the other one.

 

[Cunjo]

Unfortunately, one drive is only 18 GB, and it's almost full with just the system data, while the other (200GB) contains personal data, and I don't have a third drive or other storage media that can hold a redundant backup.

 

[reggie_da_man]

Get a laptop cooler. They work wonders!

 

[Apokalipse]

you can get two new drives, put them in a Raid 1, and copy the data from the old 18GB drive

Seagate drives are quite reliable, and Western Digital
but don't get Maxtor

 

[reggie_da_man]

Yeah Maxtor is crap.

 

[Cunjo]

Get a laptop cooler. They work wonders!

Unfortunately, all of the models I have so far seen would not work with a Toshiba/Gateway laptop using this cooling configuration - the direction of airflow would negate that of the internal CPU fan, breaking flow to the processor and causing it to get even hotter.

you can get two new drives, put them in a Raid 1, and copy the data from the old 18GB drive

Seagate drives are quite reliable, and Western Digital
but don't get Maxtor

Bummer. I can't afford another HDD at this point, and the one I have now is a Maxtor (was the only one I could afford at the time).