Harddrive temps & S.M.A.R.T.

[Alvein]

Hello, being worried about my Seagate Barracuda hot as hell, I installed a S.M.A.R.T. monitor. The program says 30 ºC on idle, 40-50 ºC average, and shows a past peek of 60 ºC (I don't know when it happened). According to these SATA drives' specs, temps are quite fine, but my impression (by tact) is that temps are hotter than the program reports.

Also, the program shows an "estimated hard drive failure" on about two months. I'm scared.

Should I believe in S.M.A.R.T.?? :confused:


10x.

[DougLite]

60C? :eek:

sustained temps above 50C? :eek: :eek:

Backup immediately. Where is the drive physically installed? Is getting a fan for it an option?

[AppaYipYip]

From what I know by checking the safe temperatures for my new 10K Raptor 150, the tolerable upper temp is around 55*C (as listed on their site).

I downloaded a small program called HDDtemp that monitors my drives, and both stay a nice cool 38 or so, topping out around 45 under heavy use.

I would be concerned about your temps, that sounds pretty stressful for the drives.

[Alvein]

Hello, thanks for your reply.

60ºC is only a peak. I've not read that temp ever. In fact, the average (reported by that program) is 40-50ºC. Nothing above 50ºC. At this time, it's reporting 42ºC (high noon).

Check http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/temperature.html. According to that, even 60ºC is fine for nowadays drives, right?

I plan to buy a fan for it. It's out of the case right now, just resting on the desk. It's used only for temp storage. Main drive is ATA and the rest of the rack is full of ATA's.

My doubts are related to S.M.A.R.T. validity and that scary thing about failure date estimation.


10x again.

[DougLite]

Any temperature above 40C is reducing the life of the drive. Over 50C almost certainly means a premature failure. Over 60C means it will die in months, maybe mere days.

[awdark]

How about this? My brand new Segate 7200.9 drive has a smart health of 50%.
Wonderful isnt it?

[Unknown-One]

How about this? My brand new Segate 7200.9 drive has a smart health of 50%.
Wonderful isnt it?
Defrag it and check again, you should be pleasantly surprised :)

[fromage]

My Maxtor idles at around 40-44degC. :o

[Ice Czar]

SMART makes predictions based on various sets of parameters,
with few data points it easily draws the wrong conclusions (thus a new drive at 50%)

its best employed to chart the gradual decline of parameters do to wear,
too many either ignore it as useless or panic because of an erroneous prediction

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/qual/featuresSMART-c.html


that said you will substantially increase the life expectancy of any silicon or mechanical device by reducing its operating temperature (of course there is typically a lower threshold for operation because of tolerances)

as a general rule of thumb the the Arrhenius equation (http://www.shodor.org/UNChem/advanced/kin/arrhenius.html) incorporates the primary variable of temperature for mean time to failure predictions
(not the only one but certainly the primary one)

roughly translating to:
Each 10°C (18°F) temperature rise reduces component life by 50%
Conversely, each 10°C (18°F) temperature reduction increases component life by 100%.

http://www.odyseus.nildram.co.uk/Systems_And_Devices_Files/Component%20Reliability%20Tutorial.pdf

[RavenD]

How about this? My brand new Segate 7200.9 drive has a smart health of 50%.
Wonderful isnt it?
Mine was the same. Glance at the smart readings from time to time. As long as the drive health read by SMART doesnt suddenly start rapidly dropping, you shouldnt have anything to worry about.

[spotpuff]

I've had 2 brand new seagate drives read around 50-60% SMART. They never dropped below that. At this point I think the SMART figures are borked.