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What are good hard drive temps?

KBD

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I've been wondering about this cause i've heard that the drives tend to die prematurely if exposed to higher temps. My 2 SATA drives in my main rig run from 29 C on a cool day but go up to 37 C on really hot days and thats with a 120mm case fan blowing cool air to the top hard drive cage. The IDE drive in the old rig goes a little bit past 40 C though that drive has served me for several years, but i suspect that those temps are still kind of high. In any case, what temps are considered normal?
 

kwchang007

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<50 C is good imo. Once it starts getting up over 50 C you have problems.
 

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WD 120 goes up to 36deg about 34 with a slow fan
seagate drive never broke 32
 

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<50 C is good imo. Once it starts getting up over 50 C you have problems.

That's what I would recommend as well - most hard drive manufacturers say that 50-55C is the maximum, my two are at 41C and 47C at the moment (my Maxtor gets quite warm for some reason). This is an interesting read about some findings by Google though.
 

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That's what I would recommend as well - most hard drive manufacturers say that 50-55C is the maximum, my two are at 41C and 47C at the moment (my Maxtor gets quite warm for some reason). This is an interesting read about some findings by Google though.

Just what I was thinking about when I say this thread:rolleyes:
 

pbmaster

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My Western Digital always stays pretty cool...
@ Jimmy: my old Maxtor also got rather warm, maybe has to do with the design?
 

Jimmy 2004

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My Western Digital always stays pretty cool...
@ Jimmy: my old Maxtor also got rather warm, maybe has to do with the design?

Could well be - my other drive is a WD, and the two drives are right on top of each other yet a 6C difference in temps, so there must be something about the Maxtor. Admittedly they are in quite a confined space without much circulation, but as long as they don't get hotter than that I'm happy. Anyway, this is yet another reason I wouldn't recommend Maxtor to anyone!
 

hat

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Yeah my maxtor drive was always hot... but it never failed on me... but yeah anything under 50C is ideal. You don't need to buy a hard drive cooler though. My uncle buys coolers for everything... heatspreaders for ram, advanced cooling for cpu, video card... coolers for hard drives :headbang: he doesn't even oc
 
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It seems Maxtors run warm - I've got one on another pc and it's always at 45 or 46 degrees, been running for over four years now.

On the other hand the seagate on the rig in my specs rarely goes above 36.
 
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