HDD Temps

Stevev · 14 May 2008 at 18:08

I've just been reading that excessive heat can cause damage to the hard drive. I have no intake fans to cool the HDD, but idle at around 47'C. I was just wondering what an acceptable temp would be and what would be the max temp before i started to cause damage ?

Also would a HDD cooler be worth it and really make that much difference ?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SY-002-AK&tool=3

Appreciate any help.

fobose · 14 May 2008 at 18:23

If you have no intakes fans to cool the hard drive, why dont you get one? A low RPM fan would still be very helpful to cool the drives (plus it would be silent). Out of preference I prefer to keep mine under 40c, but I dont care if they are in the low 40's. I think its best to keep them under about 50C though.

I wouldn't get that hard drive cooler, its probably very noisy with them small fans and would probably only drop them temps slightly!

NozzaC · 15 May 2008 at 12:07

I think it's best to keep them cooler than that or they start building up reallocated sectors. This killed my last drive before I realised what has going on. Obviously it depends on the drive you have but that temp sounds too high.

The good news is that it only seems to take a gentle airflow to make a big difference, assuming your case has good through-flow. My new, budget Akasa Zen case has dropped my HD temps dramatically. So I'd examine your airflow situation in general.

I used to have a slowed-down 80mm fan blowing over the drive which worked very well too.

dntbloodshot · 15 May 2008 at 14:01

I used to have 3 disks packed together in a tiny case without ventilation (a WD Raptor, Seagate 7200.7 and a Spinpoint F1). The top and bottom drive were at 50C, the middle one at 60C. I ran them like this for a few months without any errors cropping up, but then I just removed the middle drive as I didn't need the storage.

I installed all 3 yesterday again in a new case with 2 intake fans and this morning they were effectively running at ambient temperature, 19c with the window open.

errata · 16 May 2008 at 13:06

Google reported that tempaerature is not as crucial in relaibility as you might have thought google "google hard disc reliability".

My guess is that constancy of operating conditons is more relvant to mechanical failures ie constant high temp may be better than cycling frequenlty through lower temps. Consumer PC's tend to go on an off a lot, adeauate coolong would minimise the upper range of temperature reached.