Hard drive positioning.

ander02

ander02

ander02

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29 Jun 2009
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9
Hi, I currently have 3 hard drives in my PC, all 3 stacked one on top of the other with a couple of mm between them (if that) and the bottom drive upside down (as that’s the only way it will fit!).

Is this ok, or would I be better getting an add-on bracket to allow me to put more space between them for better cooling and allow them all to be the correct way up. Also, if I increase the space between the drives then the bottom one will be getting close to the case speaker, being as this is a magnet any idea how close you can get with a hard drive before there is a risk of it damaging data on the drive?

Thanks.
 
No idea! How do I find out?
I've only just put the drives in like this and thought I would try and find out if may lead to problems later on when I leave the PC running for several hours rather than find out the hard way!
 
I don't think I'd be happy with drives stacked that closely unless there were a fan directly in front of them, but without knowing the actual temps it's difficult to say whether or not your setup is OK.

There are plenty of free utilities which will give you the information, HDTune and Speedfan spring to mind.

BTW, it doesn't matter a jot which way up you install the drives (all the manufacturers agree on this), and the puny little magnet in a PC speaker will stand no chance whatsoever of disrupting the data on a HDD platter, even if it's physically touching the drive casing. :)
 
The 3 drives do have a fan pointing directly at them, not sure how much air it manages to move between them.
I've had the PC running for several hours and have just run HD Tune, current temperates are 31, 34 and 39.
Maximum temperatures show as 42, 40 and 46.
What's normal/acceptable temperatue wise please?
 
I consider anything under 40 to be acceptable. The maximum temps are the highest temps the drives have ever been at so aren't that useful unless they've never been used before.
 
Also bare in mind if they are different makes and sizes the temps will be totally different, for example i have a 320gb(1 platter) samsung drive average temp is 20c, and a 500gb segate (2 platters) average temp being 30c.

I would'nt worry to much about there temps, only when they start hitting over 50c would u start to worry then, but being under 40 is fine..
 
Even 50degrees is fine. I've been running my Samsung drive at over 50 for a couple of years now. Didn't Google release a study indicating that hard drive temperature had pretty much zero bearing on whether the drive failed or not?
 
I thought it was just more of a complex relationship.. the coldest drives having a higher failure rate than warm drives, but hotter drives failing more often than either?

If a drive is too hot to touch, it's time to upgrade the cooling arrangements :p
 
mrochester said:
Even 50degrees is fine. I've been running my Samsung drive at over 50 for a couple of years now. Didn't Google release a study indicating that hard drive temperature had pretty much zero bearing on whether the drive failed or not?
Click to expand...
That study was interesting as far as it went, but there was so little background information regarding the various drives' operating conditions, it was practically impossible to untangle correlation from causation. For instance, the "coolest" drives which showed vastly higher failure rates, in apparent defiance of reasonable expectations, may have been subjected to more frequent power on/off cycles which would have lowered average temperatures but possibly stressed them more than drives which were left constantly powered up. Or they may not, the point is we really don't know, along with much else.

The study did in fact show failure rates rising sharply when temps reached the high forties and above, and I think constantly running drives at 50C or over is pushing it... things *may* pan out OK, but it doesn't take very much effort to keep them cooler, so not really worth the risk IMHO.

Incidentally, your own sample size of one is statistically insignificant, as I'm sure you know, and two years isn't really all that long anyway... :)
 
I would have thought ud be fine i have around 8 drives one above another al sitting between 30 and 50 degrees never had any problems yet
 
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