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HDD temp, whats bad?

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Ivy

Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2011
My 4 TB drive certainly running at the upper edge, like 44 C at last measurent (Crystal Disc info) at 24 C ambient (usualy does never exceed 30 C, i live in cold country) . However, i never expected it to be good, there is close to no space and bad ventilation at my system, just to many drives in to little space. However, that drive only needs like 7-8 W, its hard to guess that it could truly overheat by its own energy.

According to manufacturer it can "stand" a internal HDD temp (simply the value measured by HDD) between 0 and 60 C, so im still far away from that value. Funnily, a HDD doesnt enjoy below zero, which is understandable because the moving parts might get frozen. ;)

Some other people say: Every C does decrease lifetime by some guessed value... which i find stupid. That might be true for overclocked hardware but not for HDD. Because the main issue isnt the material being vulnerable to increased electro migration, its main issue is to prevent the sensitive mechanical parts from having wrong adjustments, its movement is the main issue.

My own view is: The temp, as long as it doesnt exceed the value which is considered "safe" by the manufacturer, its not that big of a deal. Much more important not to have high temperature differences all the time. Which means to stay as stable in temps as possible = highest lifetime. So a drive doesnt enjoy turning it on and off all the time (power on cycles is a limited value). More worse than temp itself is the difference in temps. That can destroy its mechanics because material is having different size at different temps, when to much changes, it can lose its accuracy. Finally the drive may fail working properly.

I think, generally when they say 24/7 drive they truly mean it like that. Optimized for 24/7 and probably having highest lifetime doing so. That may count for every HDD, however, the cheaper one usualy are running colder (less peformance) and may not be that vulnerable when not done that way. So, running colder, yes it does help because lesser difference vs. ambient. But as long as temp is very stable, i feel like it could be at 60 C for years without issues. However, be aware, that theory also means that when the drive is cooled down to 5 C (in some freak systems) and ambient is like 35 C, its not necessarely better and its same such as having a ambient of 24 and a drive running at 54. All whats important never to leave the temp-range from the manufacturer and staying as close to ambient as possible.


Finally: Just want to know, whats safe to use? All im looking for is a sufficient (simply safe to use) value not a astounding one. If its to high i will try to make some measurement in order to reduce heat. Means im probably gonna make a heat shield with some sort of copper plate and some sink-like attachment. Will certainly find a solution. Every bit does count, when i can lower it 5 C its big success. I just can tell, its most challenging to build small systems with high end hardware, nothing is more challenging than that and i will have to make many mods i guess. On the other hand, its not fun not to have challenges, they are the sort of stuff able to give me advancement in the understanding of many matters and new improvements which comes with it.

Most important not to make "guessing"; when there is a view, backup the view by a scientific approach (why is it like that?). Other stuff cant be trusted and is nothing more than guessing.
 
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There was actually a study done by Google on all the hard drives they had in their server. There was a trend that colder drives actually died more frequently than >40c drives. There is no definite answer, though.

I would say as long as you have some airflow over the hard drive, it will be fine.
 
Close to none because 2x 3.5" and 1x 1.8" inside a SFF... 1 cm space between :D I could make a copper shield still (can draw some heat away), but airflow is hard stuff.

Anyway, i noticed that the temp now dropped to 37 C on both drives, its weird. Thats 7 C lower than 15 min ago. However, previously i used the drives for media. So can it have so much difference when at load? It seems like the temp is usualy between 37 and 44 C.
 
There was actually a study done by Google on all the hard drives they had in their server. There was a trend that colder drives actually died more frequently than >40c drives. There is no definite answer, though.

I would say as long as you have some airflow over the hard drive, it will be fine.

That....is scary..

Because in my old case my HD's used to hover around 38c. In my Tempest Evo they are 21c. Great. My case is going to kill my hard drives -_-
 
In my server, I have a 5 bay quick swap cage, with barely 1-2mm at most of space here and there around the drives. It has a single 80mm fan in the rear that pulls air through the miniscule gaps in the front of the cage, over the HDDs. Right now, with ambient temps around 24.4C, the drives are around 32C-34C, with the highest lone wolf @ 39C. That one is a 1.5TB Seagate drive that I'll need to check the next time I have the system down for a few hours and let the drives reach ambient, and see what the temp offset is, as it always seems higher then all the rest.

They'll go much higher once summer really kicks in (the server is not in a climate controlled room), so I expect another 6.6C higher or more at idle. Some of these drives have been through that for a couple of years.

Dunno what else I can say except it the norm for me and my drives.
 
Hmm the external Verbatim drive seems wrong at measurement, got 24C which simply cant be true. At startup it had 17 C (and i dont even wear a pullover, i dont feel its cold). The ambient is 24 according to temp gun (which was always accurate. Ambient is measured at the case of my inactive PC, and at the wall). Surface temp of external enclosure is 27 C according to temp gun. So the temp inside is much higher than that (probably 37C+, because at startup it was 7 to low and the enclosure is now 3 C above ambient, so 7+3). The Verbatim (Samsung inside) temp sensor is a failure. Just a warning, those sensors cant always be trusted, its not the most accurate stuff. Easyest to check it out is to shut off PC (let it cool down), and short time after startup a temp check, it should be close to ambient at that time. When its lower than that or much higher, its probably a sensor failure.
 
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Old 7200 RPM HDs drew 1W - 2W more than today's models, and I kind of remember them idling at about 45C in 24C air when they sat horizontally, 1/4" above a table, and the temperature would drop 2C - 3C when the drives were vertical. Also vertical orientation made the hottest chips 10C - 20C cooler, from about 50C - 60C.

IOW I wouldn't worry about a drive running at 44C.
 
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