I just put together a new HTPC / media server with 5 total internal hard drives. Although have 2 80mm fans blowing on my hard drive array, there's not much ventilation in the case, and the space is cramped. I'm worried that my temps are going to get too high. Does anyone know what would be a safe operating temperature for ES class Seagate drives? I left the computer on for 24 hours and temperatures have creeped up to 120-124 degrees F.
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Safe HD operating temperatures?
- Thread starter awoeonip
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the highest my hdd has gone up to is 40 degrees and thats have a small cramp case with loads of stuff.
The ES is an Enterprise class drive, and I was not familiar with that designation. Most of their home use drives go by the 7200 series designations. That is much more common around here. 
The ES drives are good from 5-55 Celsius. It's on their web site here.
It's much tighter, but still withing spec. What is the ambient room temp, and will it be much higher in the summer?
Hint, set it to shut down at 131 degrees if you wan to stay in spec. The warmer you run them, the more likely they are to fail. Specs be damned, that's just my personal experience. Drives in SFF itty bitty desktops die more often than full size cases in my experience.
Don
The ES drives are good from 5-55 Celsius. It's on their web site here.
It's much tighter, but still withing spec. What is the ambient room temp, and will it be much higher in the summer?
Hint, set it to shut down at 131 degrees if you wan to stay in spec. The warmer you run them, the more likely they are to fail. Specs be damned, that's just my personal experience. Drives in SFF itty bitty desktops die more often than full size cases in my experience.
Don
hmm...damn them and their tighter specs. I bought them hoping for better peace of mind in my storage system, but also tried to cram them into my HTPC case. Tried to do too much at once i guess
I don't feel so comfortable running them so close to their maximum recommended temperature, but I really don't see how I could improve airflow that much better in my case. Might have to go back to the drawing board and sell the case.
I don't feel so comfortable running them so close to their maximum recommended temperature, but I really don't see how I could improve airflow that much better in my case. Might have to go back to the drawing board and sell the case.
robman_rob
Limp Gawd
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my HD on my laptop frequently runs high 50's and it's doing alright.
Nenu
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I wont let mine exceed 40C, right now they are at 30 and 33C.
The last drive I let get to 50C still works but has a very loud bearing whine now.
Reported temps arent necessarily correct as there is no guarantee the sensor is accurate.
Best to give yourself a bit of a margin for error if you can.
The last drive I let get to 50C still works but has a very loud bearing whine now.
Reported temps arent necessarily correct as there is no guarantee the sensor is accurate.
Best to give yourself a bit of a margin for error if you can.
I don't know how many people ever saw the Google hard drive report but if I remember correctly from, they said that mfg, speed and temp didn't really do much to destroy a hard drive. I think they chalked it up to juts random failings.
Could be totally wrong about that though.
Could be totally wrong about that though.
It's a bit more complicated than that. They have a few interesting results.
1)High utilization tended to kill very young and old drives only. Markedly high for less than 3 months old.
2) Temp did not seem to be a predictor of failure till the drives got older than 3 years. In fact, running them too cold made them a little MORE likely to fail.
3) 60% of the drives that failed had SMART errors.
4) Their overall failure rate was about 8% per year after the first year when it is only 2%. Are drives getting better. One can only hope.
5) They wouldn't report by manufacturer or model, even though they said it had a huge affect. Cowards!
It's a cool report though. Link It's a PDF, so you must have Acrobat installed to read it.
Don
I probably should have....hindsight is 20/20. doh!ALL4AMD said:
that sounds like an amazing set of data to get a hold ofDonDon said:
Thanks for the input everyone. I still have some time to figure out what I want to do, but I'm leaning towards buying a new case. I'm pushing temps I don't want to be at right now, and I keep my room pretty chilly with the windows open. There's little doubt in my mind that the drives will be pushing 130-140 F when summer comes around
Heh, nice one Don but thanks for the corrections and the link!
The lack of manufacturer and model data totally invalidated the study, even before more than a few questionable omissions and practices. I've abused more than my fair share of drives - and the Google study is a load of crap. Completely ignores power loading, which is a major factor of PCB failure and error rates, completely ignores signaling and enclosure considerations, etcetera.
Bluntly, take claimed max operating, subtract 10C. That's the realistic number. Then realize that it's still purely luck mixed with load characteristics and power quality. There's a reason I put filtering and load resistors on larger arrays, and pay attention to cable location and layout.
Oh, and I'll take the longest operating drive crown, thanks. ST-251 that I bought new, still running to this day. ;P
Bluntly, take claimed max operating, subtract 10C. That's the realistic number. Then realize that it's still purely luck mixed with load characteristics and power quality. There's a reason I put filtering and load resistors on larger arrays, and pay attention to cable location and layout.
Oh, and I'll take the longest operating drive crown, thanks. ST-251 that I bought new, still running to this day. ;P
Oh, they have the data, just refused to publish it out of fear of pissing them off.
Probably because they had no good way to easily collect that kind of info from millions of drives. It doesn't invalidate the study, it just makes it a little less complete. This was not a detailed study of a few failures. It was an across the board look at every drive in every one of their data centers. They say up front it is just a snapshot of a large population's failure rate and an attempt to match failures to some kind of statistical sampling.
Hah, I used to go through those things like toilet paper. Your's is amazing. I bet Seagate would want it back so they can analyse it to find out what they screwed up to allow it to last that long.
Don