SPCR

We live in southern Virginia (USA), and most of our house isn't air-conditioned, so it gets very warm in the summer. Our computers are fairly quiet, but this seems to be rough on the hard drives. We have old Seagate Barracuda IV drives; the SMART reports are starting to look rough, and I'm worried by reported maximum temperatures in the fifties (Celsius). I'd like to switch to new drives with lower power consumption, either WD GreenPower or 2.5". Of course the GreenPower drives are much cheaper per gigabyte, but would they be comfortably cool with temperatures outside the case in the nineties (Fahrenheit) at times in the summer? Or do I need 2.5" drives to be safe?

I'm assuming that the performance with either type of drive wouldn't be noticeably worse than the old drives. I did read comments on NewEgg about the GreenPowers being a bad choice for OS usage, but I'd rather ignore that. NewEgg reviews also indicate poor reliability for many of the 2.5" drives, but hopefully we wouldn't get lemons.

Thanks for your advice.

Have you considered a very very slow running fan blowing over the drive(s).

An 80mm fan running at <500rpm will keep a drive quite close to the ambient temp, and so long as the fan is good quality it will be utterly silent, you can even suspend the fan using gardent string and foam if there isnt a mounting point for it.


Andy

I am a big fan of the quiet Samsung HD501LJ 500GB hard drives. None of the four units that I have used have ever exceeded 35 degrees even without active cooling. If you search for reviews from Anandtech and elsewhere you will find that these drives have superior energy efficiency and run cooler than the competition.

andyb wrote:Have you considered a very very slow running fan blowing over the drive(s).

An 80mm fan running at <500rpm will keep a drive quite close to the ambient temp, and so long as the fan is good quality it will be utterly silent, you can even suspend the fan using gardent string and foam if there isnt a mounting point for it.

One system is in an InWin mATX case. It does have a front fan, but it's not enough to keep the hard drive cool in the cage above, and there's insufficient room for the hard drive in the bottom of the case. The other system is in a small ATX case of unknown manufacture. It doesn't have a front fan because there's not room in front of the hard drive, which is sitting on foam on the bottom of the case with aluminum U-channel screwed to both sides as a heatsink. It might be better off configured like the first one.

There's also a third system that I'm not so worried about, because the drive hasn't reported such high temperatures and still seems to be in pretty good shape. It's 20GB, a quarter the size of the other systems' drives, which I assume means fewer platters and less heat, but it's also in a larger case, suspended right behind the front fan. Perhaps I ought to be looking for different cases for the first two systems?

Michael Sandstrom wrote:I am a big fan of the quiet Samsung HD501LJ 500GB hard drives. None of the four units that I have used have ever exceeded 35 degrees even without active cooling. If you search for reviews from Anandtech and elsewhere you will find that these drives have superior energy efficiency and run cooler than the competition.

That's interesting. The reports of high vibration levels from those drives make them a bad candidate for hard mounting, as is most likely at this point, but if I do end up switching cases perhaps I could work out a good suspension arrangement.

Hello David,

The vibration of Samsung drives is frequently commented about which is why I chose SPCR's highly rated Antec Solo in spite of not liking the appearance. As time has passed I've come to appreciate the appearance as well as the function.

Michael Sandstrom wrote:I am a big fan of the quiet Samsung HD501LJ 500GB hard drives. None of the four units that I have used have ever exceeded 35 degrees even without active cooling. If you search for reviews from Anandtech and elsewhere you will find that these drives have superior energy efficiency and run cooler than the competition.

I like those drives as well, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Samsung drives might sometimes tend to under-report their temperatures - for instance, I once had a HD501LJ running next to a similar-generation WD, and the Samsung would typically report temps 8-10C lower than the WD, although they both felt about the same to the touch (the WD was reporting 40C at idle, which felt about right to my uneducated finger).

I also used to have a Spinpoint SP1203N which would report temps of 17-18C when the ambient temperature was >20C...

Hello nick705,

I do not know whether the Samsungs under report temps but if power draw is accurately measured on different drives the drive with the lower power draw will be the one that runs cooler.

Smart temperature reporting by various drives has always been a mystery to me......like just where is the sensor located? I measure drive temperature on the edge of the drive as it's running. This can frequently be quite different from the smart temp......sometimes by as much as 10C.

When I boot a computer from cold......sometimes the smart temperature is well below ambient, which is impossible.

So.....when using Speedfan or other utilities to monitor the drive temperature, I always adjust the temperature offset to agree with the actual temperature off the side of the drive. For this I use a separate digital temp meter. This technique has worked for me for a long time. I try to keep the temp 35/38C regardless of the ambient temp.

Michael Sandstrom wrote:Hello nick705,

I do not know whether the Samsungs under report temps but if power draw is accurately measured on different drives the drive with the lower power draw will be the one that runs cooler.

Yes, that makes sense, although maybe some drives are also a bit more efficient at dissipating the heat they generate than others (like some CPU heatsinks are better than others). I doubt if it's a major factor though - I've always thought the "fins" on the WD Raptor were more for show than anything else, they can't increase the surface area enough to make any great difference.

Bluefront wrote:Smart temperature reporting by various drives has always been a mystery to me......like just where is the sensor located? I measure drive temperature on the edge of the drive as it's running. This can frequently be quite different from the smart temp......sometimes by as much as 10C.

This is apparently where it is on a WD drive (no idea about other makes):



I'd have thought the area around the actuator arm would get hotter than that spot, or maybe components on the PCB itself (which I imagine are prone to heat-related failure at least as much as any other part).

Michael Sandstrom wrote:I am a big fan of the quiet Samsung HD501LJ 500GB hard drives. None of the four units that I have used have ever exceeded 35 degrees even without active cooling. If you search for reviews from Anandtech and elsewhere you will find that these drives have superior energy efficiency and run cooler than the competition.

I have one of those suspended in an antec solo running at 32ºC (21ºC ambient) with the front fan off. If I connect it at 5V, temp goes down to 26ºC. And it is almost inaudible from 1m, all you hear is a weak wooshhh.

To steer this back to my own purposes, do any of y'all have temperature measurements from before and after switching from a normal hard drive to a GreenPower or 2.5" drive? System readings (from the motherboard rather than the drive) might be especially interesting.