HDD Operating >45°C(113°F) or even >50°C(122°F) is safe?

[POWER_ID]

So I have this 7-year-old WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM HDD, and it's been fine until I hit 56°C (132,8°F), and a day after that, my drive had a warning in HWiNFO, and my friend said that HDDs above 50°C start to not like those temperatures. 
So here I am asking, should I worry and put my HDD outside my PC so it doesn't always get hot airflow from my GPU or CPU? or HDD safe operating temperature is well within 50 °C.

 

Don't worry it's mostly a game drive.
Important data has been backed up safely lol

The Warning 

The Time it hit 56C Max 

[johnno23]

The maximum operating temperature of WD Blue is 60C.

 

http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=RSX4L0

 

you could if the case has the space just relocate that drive to the bottom of the case where it is not subject to heat from the gpu.

[POWER_ID]

Just now, johnno23 said:

The maximum operating temperature of WD Blue is 60C.

actually 
so, it's fine and still safe because it's under 60?

[johnno23]

pretty much....just edeited my last post but you could just relocate that drive to an area where you do not have it in the flow of hot air from your GPU.

I have no idea about your financial situation but a 1TB SSD these days is easy to get for a little under 50 USD

[SpookyCitrus]

15 minutes ago, POWER_ID said:

 7-year-old WD Blue 1TB 7200RPM HDD

 it hit 56C Max 

Those temps are actually fine, sort of. 56C is a little warm. The average temps that are "safe" for operating temperature of mechanical HDDs is 40 to 50C, 56C while higher is still within the 0 to 60C window of safe operating temperature for that drive. Most likely the rise in temps and warning is from your pending sector count due to the age of the drive. If the drive has pending sectors and is working harder for it to try to read those sectors it can run hotter.

 

Try using an actual HDD testing utility such as HD Tune or Crystaldiskinfo. If your drive has over 1000 power on days as well as bad or pending sectors it is time to replace it. If it doesn't show any errors as such, then moving it's location in the case to one of which that has more airflow is recommended.

 

Or just do what you should have done a while ago and replace it with an SSD.

2.5" Sata SSDs are super inexpensive these days and make for much better game drives. Realistically no one should have a standard mechanical HDDs in their gaming setup anymore.

[POWER_ID]

4 minutes ago, johnno23 said:

pretty much....just edeited my last post but you could just relocate that drive to an area where you do not have it in the flow of hot air from your GPU.

I have no idea about your financial situation but a 1TB SSD these days is easy to get for a little under 50 USD

yeah, unfortunately 1TB SSD is still too much for me to spend. i was planning to do psu upgrade first but well now my hdd is dying might aswell got another 1TB hdd if it become severely unusable.

 

2 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Or just do what you should have done a while ago and replace it with a SSD. 2.5" Sata SSDs are super inexpensive these days and make for much better game drives. Realistically no one should have a standard mechanical HDDs in their gaming setup anymore.

well Realistically aswell, my Financial can't easily cover me spending that much just for 1TB 

[johnno23]

no problem....on the SSD side of things.

your drive is operating at temps that are quite acceptable. 

Just keep an eye on it but dont worry too much. worst that can happen is having to use Steam to redownload at some future date.

Mechanical Drives are odd creatures and I have over the years had drives die after 6 months and have others that are 15 years old and still running. 

I have maybe 10 mechanical drives in house still and many no longer being used but all of them have old movies music and games etc that I occasionaly drop into an external dock and they still work. 

 

[OhioYJ]

Technically... But it would be happier if it were cooler. Just adding some airflow would likely decrease the temps quite a bit. In all my cases I've added fans to help this:

 

Here is one under a PSU shroud:

 

 

My NAS as an example:

 

 

 

[POWER_ID]

2 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

Technically... But it would be happier if it were cooler. Just adding some airflow would likely decrease the temps quite a bit. In all my cases I've added fans to help this:

 

Here is one under a PSU shroud:

 

 

My NAS as an example:

 

 

 

mine have high temp because of my stupid case design where it forced me to have airflow directed from the back of the case to the front toasting my drive lol
i prolly just going to re route the cable and place it outside, i already have jank stuff done to my case lol
like drilling hole so my psu can breath (it's top mounted psu style with sucking inside pc air but now it's like Fractal Torrent lmao)

[POWER_ID]

4 minutes ago, johnno23 said:

no problem....on the SSD side of things.

your drive is operating at temps that are quite acceptable. 

Just keep an eye on it but dont worry too much. worst that can happen is having to use Steam to redownload at some future date.

Mechanical Drives are odd creatures and I have over the years had drives die after 6 months and have others that are 15 years old and still running. 

I have maybe 10 mechanical drives in house still and many no longer being used but all of them have old movies music and games etc that I occasionaly drop into an external dock and they still work. 

 

i do also have stack of dead hdd in my house... funny all of em is Seagate tho lol

[bezza...]

1 hour ago, SpookyCitrus said:

 

Or just do what you should have done a while ago and replace it with an SSD.

2.5" Sata SSDs are super inexpensive these days and make for much better game drives. Realistically no one should have a standard mechanical HDDs in their gaming setup anymore.

i use a 2 tb hdd in my main pc as a games drive. i got it for about 40 quid a year ago it works perfectly fine for the games i put on it if the old hdd works no point creating e waste

[SpookyCitrus]

13 minutes ago, Tomberry said:

i use a 2 tb hdd in my main pc as a games drive. i got it for about 40 quid a year ago it works perfectly fine for the games i put on it if the old hdd works no point creating e waste

I'm saying if the drive is bad, they should replace it with an SSD. There is no point in 2023 buying a used or new standard mechanical HDD as a game drive with how inexpensive sata SSDs are now. I'm not telling OP to just ditch the drive even if it's still good. 

[bezza...]

4 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

I'm saying if the drive is bad, they should replace it with an SSD. There is no point in 2023 buying a used or new standard mechanical HDD as a game drive with how inexpensive sata SSDs are now. I'm not telling OP to just ditch the drive even if it's still good. 

its just that you said that he should have replaced it a "while ago" i do agree tho that the op should go for a new ssd

[POWER_ID]

9 hours ago, Tomberry said:

its just that you said that he should have replaced it a "while ago" i do agree tho that the op should go for a new ssd

i might go 1TB SSD or 4TB HDD when this drive dies
i still pretty much in need of higher capacity drive in the end hence consideration of 4TB HDD (which is the same price as 1TB SSD)

[bezza...]

13 hours ago, POWER_ID said:

i might go 1TB SSD or 4TB HDD when this drive dies
i still pretty much in need of higher capacity drive in the end hence consideration of 4TB HDD (which is the same price as 1TB SSD)

its up 2 u i opted for a 2 tb hdd a few years ago instead of a ssd. personally unless you really need the ectra space for games i would go for a cheap 1 tb ssd