Why is my C drive heating up when I'm copying files on my D and E drives?

[tripleclicker]

Hello all. It's summer in the tropics, right now about 35C in my room. I'm robocopying something from my HDD (D) to my SSD (E), but why is my SSD (C) OS drive heating up?
Temps start off about ambient for all, then for C: it went up 47C, while the other drives reached 39C. Now I've read around that temps are nothing to worry about until it reaches the 50s and 60s even.
But why the surge in temps when the copying has nothing to do with the C drive? Is the copying operation using the C drive as cache of sorts? Any settings to change?

 

[xtreemchaos]

when your copying from drive to drive i think everything gos through the C: drive not straight from one drive to another thats why we have a operating system. someone please correct me if im wrong .

 

[P4-630]

when your copying from drive to drive i think everything gos through the C: drive not straight from one drive to another thats why we have a operating system. someone please correct me if im wrong .

I don't think so, what's the logic in that?

 

[xtreemchaos]

logic is C: is needed to do anything on a pc without it you only have bios in other words C: Is the workbench we do do our work on bud.

 

[P4-630]

when your copying from drive to drive i think everything gos through the C:

So when I copy 10GB of files from E to D my C drive total host writes would be +10GB as well?

 

[tripleclicker]

I know back in the old days it was like that, but not anymore. This is weird if it is, this is the 21st century already. Or it could be a robocopy only thing.

 

[xtreemchaos]

no i didnt say that, what im saying is C: is used every time we do something on a pc because of the operating system on it. so its going to get warm.

 

[JeffF]

This could all depend on if your system Hard drive is using partitions with those drive letters on the same drive. Unless you have multiple Hard drives using those drive letters. Yet don't forget the file system is transferring those files so your system is at work either way.

 

[P4-630]

This could all depend on if your system Hard drive is using partitions with those drive letters on the same drive.

OP is mentioning "drives" so probably not partitions on a same drive.

 

[JeffF]

OP is mentioning "drives" so probably not partitions on a same drive.

Yet we know how probably can be mistaken for maybe? lol Seriously though. We don't know unless we ask some times on here right?

 

[tripleclicker]

The two drives doing the copying are separate physical drives, not partitions on the same drive. The OS drive is another separate physical drive.

 

[JeffF]

The two drives doing the copying are separate physical drives, not partitions on the same drive. The OS drive is another separate physical drive.

Ok that clears that question up. Yet remember your file system is also at work while doing the transferring of files. It all has to go through the File manager and Etc.

Although what's your Temps showing on your System Hard Drive to concern you?

 

[tripleclicker]

I guess I'll have to do this during the evening when the temps are lower. Another drive, a WD passport external developed a SMART C5 current pending sector count error after several days of these high temps reaching 43C.

 

[xtreemchaos]

i would consider 43c high bud.

 

[qubit]

when your copying from drive to drive i think everything gos through the C: drive not straight from one drive to another thats why we have a operating system. someone please correct me if im wrong .

It doesn't go through C as the transfer is done using DMA between the drives. Much faster and more efficient. This happens whether it's HDD or SSD, or a mixture of the two. In fact, even in the old PIO mode where the CPU used to handle it, it didn't write the data to C. It was just slower and less efficient since the CPU had to handle all the work.

Why the OP's C drive is heating up, makes no sense to me and I suspect that there might be something else going on here, perhaps something that they're not aware of.

 

[xtreemchaos]

It doesn't go through C a

im not saying that bud what im saying is C: is used every time we do something on a pc because of the operating system on it. on a pc we carnt copy from drive to drive without the operating system being used in some way so its going to get warm.

 

[TheLostSwede]

when your copying from drive to drive i think everything gos through the C: drive not straight from one drive to another thats why we have a operating system. someone please correct me if im wrong .

That hasn't been the case since DMA was invented.

 

[xtreemchaos]

That hasn't been the case since DMA was invented.

so what you saying bud ? if theres a way to copy from drive to drive in windows where it dont need a operating system pray please tell me.

 

[tabascosauz]

Regardless of whether C: has some "part" to play, generally with NVMes you'll only be seeing the drive that's being written to as the only one that heats up noticeably (anywhere between 5-20 degrees) on very long sustained file transfers between the two drives. The temp delta on the read drive should be relatively negligible.

If the unrelated C: drive is heating up during a transfer between D: and E:, then there's some other disk activity going to C: that you aren't aware of, maybe Windows Update or a scan. That, or the partitions aren't actually set up the way you think they are, or the transfer isn't going to where you think it is.

And NVMes are really the only SSDs that heat up significantly anymore. 2.5" SATA SSDs (as long as they aren't encased in plastic) generally have so much space and what I'm assuming is effectively heatsink area that I've never seen any of my SATA SSDs heat up during writes more than 5-7C more than when they started.

 

[AsRock]

logic is C: is needed to do anything on a pc without it you only have bios in other words C: Is the workbench we do do our work on bud.

Nope not at all, actually copying contents to a HDD from a SSD right now and C is at 0%, never mind the point that it would be pointless waste of time.

No temp difference on C.

How ever maybe a lot of paging going on due low ram or some thing ?.

 

[xtreemchaos]

i give in.

 

[TheLostSwede]

so what you saying bud ? if theres a way to copy from drive to drive in windows where it dont need a operating system pray please tell me.

I don't think I said anything at all about an OS.
What DMA allows, is that the OS issues a command to the drive, that can then via DMA, copy the data to another drive, without going via the CPU or the main drive.
It's also used for a bunch of other things in modern computers to offload the system.
I was actually slightly wrong, PIO was the first thing to do this for storage.

Direct memory access - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Vya Domus]

The OS is constantly reading/writing stuff on the drive it's installed on, because of swaping for instance. It's fine.

 

[xtreemchaos]

thelostswede I believe you honist ,ive give in i have to work darn making money i hate it .

 

[bug]

Hello all. It's summer in the tropics, right now about 35C in my room. I'm robocopying something from my HDD (D) to my SSD (E), but why is my SSD (C) OS drive heating up?
Temps start off about ambient for all, then for C: it went up 47C, while the other drives reached 39C. Now I've read around that temps are nothing to worry about until it reaches the 50s and 60s even.
But why the surge in temps when the copying has nothing to do with the C drive? Is the copying operation using the C drive as cache of sorts? Any settings to change?

Use the resource monitor and find out for yourself?