Drive Temperature Problem

[n8chavez]

I have had a harddrive crash recently that has cause me to purchase another drive. I also have another drive set up as a slave. My problem is that my new master drive seems to be getting very hot, 41 c, despite having a third party fan plugged in. I have never had a drive run that hot before. What could be causing this? I am a little worried. Would having the other drive as a slave cause this? Maybe I should get rid of it because it is the only thing that is different from my porevious setup, other than the new drive.

Any ideas?

[Brian K]

Nate,

I changed my HDs recently to larger ones. The old ones ran at 43 and 48°C. The new ones run at 41 and 43°C. The upper limit for HDs is 55°C so I'm not concerned. The Google study indicated that higher HD temps is not associated with HD failure.

I can't answer your question.

[AaLF]

The next time anyone gets a 'crashed HDD' instead of poping it in the bin, pop it in the freezer.

I heard somewhere that the freezer offers a good chance of rescuing the drive. I haven't tried it yet as a crashed drive is not an everyday occurance. Wonder if it works or is it just an ol' geek's tale?

[TOMxEU]

You could buy HDD boxes (dust free), they will last forever, so it would not be wasted money. My 2 HDDs have 25-30C, though I have also fans ahead of them.

42C is normal if the ambient outside temps are around the range of 28C-34C. In case you are worried, there are some really good cost effective hdd coolers out there.

[ThunderZ]

Originally Posted by tisatashar

The next time anyone gets a 'crashed HDD' instead of poping it in the bin, pop it in the freezer.

I heard somewhere that the freezer offers a good chance of rescuing the drive. I haven't tried it yet as a crashed drive is not an everyday occurance. Wonder if it works or is it just an ol' geek's tale?

There is some truth to that.

Had a totally trashed hdd given to me just to play with. Unrecognizable in my PC or Disk manager. Loud ticking tracked down to correspond with the movement of the head when attempting to spin up.
Threw it in a ziplock bag. Squeezed the air out of it and tossed it in the freezer for about 5 hours.
When I plugged it in to my test tower I actually got about 5 minutes of useable life out of it. Was able to see it and actually started recovering part of the data from it.

DISCLAIMER:I would not try this on a production machine. Your mileage may vary.

[Bill_Bright]

The freezer trick is pretty much an old wives tale, and generally, just allowing the drive to cool would have had the same effect.

Note this trick is to free seized bearings long enough to copy off as many critical data files, before the drive heats up again and seizes.

You might want to inspect your case to see if it will support a fan in front that will push cool air across the drives.

[Eliot]

I've done it a couple times. Varied with time it worked. One old 10GB drive worked for 3 days after a freezer stay, lol.

EDIT: fan in front of two drives for me has them at 23C (Raptor) - 29C (Seagate sata 320GB)

one that does not at 38C (ide 320GB)

[rlong]

The freezer trick can indeed work. If you're really concerned about drive temp, just switch to solid state drives.

[jonyjoe81]

I have 4 drives (1x300gb, 3 x 500gb) in my mediapc running 24/7 never turn it off except for upgrading parts. The average temp on the drives is about 45 degrees. To me I would worry only if the temp exceeds 50 celcius.

As long as you have fans on them, they should be ok. In the 3 years I've had my mediapc, I haven't had any hard drive failures except an old boot drive 40gb that was already 3 years old when I installed it.

I always monitor the hard drive temperatures on all my computers, and temperatures in the 40 celcius is what I usually see. The only time I ever saw 50 celcius or higher is when one of the hard drive fan's failed. Any temperatures under 40 celcius I only see when I first turn on the computer.

The temperature you see on your hard drive is average, it won't cause any longterm damage.

[NAMOR]

My drive is at 42, that's a pretty normal temp for me since all of my computers are toaster ovens. So i really wouldn't worry about 41.

[Mrkvonic]

Hello,

In the summer, my drives get up to 45-50degC, but they hold there consistently, no matter what I do; outside it's roughly 30+. In the winter, they are at around 35-40degC, again pretty much consistently.

I don't think temperature makes that much difference; more important is temperature gradient. If your drives are kept in a consistent, steady state, I think they'll live longer, even if hot, than drives that undergo rapid changes in temperature, like ones constantly turned on off. My overall "summer" delta is maybe 3 degrees, over 7-8 months of use.

UPS also does magic for drive longevity.

Mrk