WD 3TB (WD4003FZEX) Operating temperatures

Kainz · 8 Feb 2014 at 13:18

Hey all,

Quick question. I am slowly upgrading the ancient, yet reliable hard disks on my watercooled PC upto modern day ones. Most of the ones running within my machine range upto 1TB only.

I recently purchased a 3TB WD Black drive and installed it within my machine today. This drive seems to run at around 55-58c most of the time whilst idling according to HD Tune Pro.

Ventilation isn't the best in the area where my hard disks are located and the other HD's run at around 30-45c but they are of lower capacity obviously.

Is this temperature something to be concerned about? Otherwise I'll have to look at some fan assisted cooling for the drive bays.

Sasahara · 8 Feb 2014 at 23:48

Try some other monitoring software as HD Tune might not be compatible.
CrystalDiscInfo is worth a try.

If they all show the same that is a bit hot, guess you don't have any air flow on your hard drives.

Personally I wouldn't want drives over 45c and under 40c when the machine is idle, but that generally required some form of cooling on high performance drives.

wazza300 · 8 Feb 2014 at 23:53

felt the drive? it should be slightly warm to the touch that's all

tbyeah · 9 Feb 2014 at 00:10

That does seem very high, I have a 2tb Barracuda in a HAF XB (no airflow whatsoever to drives) and it still only peaks at 40.

I think anything above 50 isn't good for a hard drive, I'd try to relocate it to somewhere with better airflow.

Kainz · 9 Feb 2014 at 08:09

Cheers guys. Crystal disk readings and HD Tune ones tie in and match.

Figured out what the problem is though. I have a Corsair 800d case. It has a 4x HD drive bay with caddies. This bay is mostly an enclosed box and all the drives residing in this bay are quite hot. In addition I have a Samsung HD (1TB) outside the bay and that sits at just 30c. So it's clear that I need to cool that bay.

Update: I fitted in a 140mm fan to the side of the enclosed bay. It already had some predrilled holes so I was ok. Temps so far are looking rather good. The 3TB HD = 38c and the other two smaller capacity drives in the enclosure are around 40c thus far. Previously the smaller drives were in their 50'c range too.