Why cool your hard drives?

[IncogInfidel]

I use 3 hard drives and never understood why people put fans near their hdd's. I assume it's simply to try to extend their live's, I've never had one fail on me though. Do hard drive's fail if they get hot enough and how hot would they need to get to malfunction. I really don't see the need for doing this, and think it is really unnecessary. Am I wrong?

[Levent]

my wd green have bad sectors just because it was too cold last 6 months (average of 14degrees) since i moved it somewhere hot (under the front fan ) i didnt have any issues so in my case if your hdd is 25-40 thats OK but its lower or higher than that expect problems

[mgsstar]

I heard that some drives like the WD Caviar Black gets really hot and it would require fans to keep it cool.

[tbc]

everyone who believes HDDs need cooling need to read google's report on hard drive longevity....

 

...long story short, cooling your hard drive reduces it's lifetime because the lubricant won't work properly.

 

 

EDIT:

 

there are VERY few use-cases where an HDD will need cooling.  basically, if your CPU is surviving, your HDDs will too.

[WoodenMarker]

Hot hdds might raise the ambient temperature inside the case, thus indirectly heating the other parts?

[Flamewalker]

I heard that some drives like the WD Caviar Black gets really hot and it would require fans to keep it cool.

Pretty much this, my wd2001fass (wd black 2tb) reaches 45 c without a fan when its beeing used.

[Andi]

I heard that some drives like the WD Caviar Black gets really hot and it would require fans to keep it cool.

WD blacks are allowed to get 60°C hot. You don't really need to cool any HDD. It's bad when they get to cold, and it's unlikely that a hhd will reach temperatures beyond specs in normal use cases.

[tbc]

Hot hdds might raise the ambient temperature inside the case, thus indirectly heating the other parts?

 

 

this doesn't make as much sense as you think it does.

 

cooling a part doesn't reduce the amount of heat it generates.

 

if you're worried about ambient heating, you cool the parts that might get too hot, not the hard drives.

[WoodenMarker]

this doesn't make as much sense as you think it does.

 

cooling a part doesn't reduce the amount of heat it generates.

 

if you're worried about ambient heating, you cool the parts that might get too hot, not the hard drives.

A vacuum of air could pull the heat from the hdd's outside of the case.

 

Of course it doesn't reduce the heat a part generates but that's not the point in cooling. The point is to lower temps. The heat generated will stay the same regardless of what part you're talking about. It's about removing the heat buildup to lower temps.

[Art Vandelay]

Hard drives, in my experience need a fan blowing on them, otherwise they will get way too hot. I have a WD caviar blue that shuts off when it runs passive.

[Eric1024]

HDD's do need some way to disperse heat, especially the higher rpm ones (10k, 15k), but they don't need high amounts of airflow by any standard. I think the reason people put so many fans around their drive cages is just to get air past the drives so it can flow through the rest of the case and cool everything else, because drives do block a lot of airflow, especially if you have 3 or more next to / on top of each other.

[Godlygamer23]

The hard drive in my laptop gets pretty toasty. Sorry, hard drives need to be cooled. And my hard drives have been sitting in front of fans for the past, I don't know, year or two and I have had no issues whatsoever. In case anyone is wondering, I have WD Caviar Blue hard drives.

[mgsstar]

The hard drive in my laptop gets pretty toasty. Sorry, hard drives need to be cooled. And my hard drives have been sitting in front of fans for the past, I don't know, year or two and I have had no issues whatsoever. In case anyone is wondering, I have WD Caviar Blue hard drives.

My laptop hard drive also gets quite warm when operating. The hard drive is probably hot because of the heat being dispersed from the cpu. So I think that most hard drives would not require cooling because I have a barracuda which runs at around 40c.

[XiaoPigs]

As long as your case is well ventilated I don't see problem with leaving your hard drives without a fan and most of the time, your front intakes are blowing air towards hard drives 

[Godlygamer23]

My laptop hard drive also gets quite warm when operating. The hard drive is probably hot because of the heat being dispersed from the cpu. So I think that most hard drives would not require cooling because I have a barracuda which runs at around 40c.

It only happens when the hard drive is under load.

[KaareKanin]

The above mentioned google paper shows that drives operating at about 38-40 deg C lives longer

[LogicalDrm]

Imo there's no need for extra cooling on hdds. I've got air cooling optimized case so my second intake fan cools hdds as side thing.

[joelthezombie15]

Hot hdds might raise the ambient temperature inside the case, thus indirectly heating the other parts?

not enough to cause harm though.

[WoodenMarker]

not enough to cause harm though.

It's about as harmless as a hundred house spiders on the wall.

[stairs2195]

in my experience ive never needed to cool my hard disks ive never seen my WD black go above 30C unless the temp sensor is broke but ive never needed to cool my drives. i can see why people do cool theirs as if you had like 3/4 stacked on top of each other there is not much room for air circulation.

[grayperview]

The HDD's controller (card) will certainly need cooling like all electrical equipment heat will kill it if excessive, My personal 4 HDD's run between 23c and 29c and have done perfectly now for over 5 years with a intake fan infront of them.

[theNejCar]

My old hdds were overheating all the time and I had to cool them. They were really old though.

[gliliumho]

I've had 3 HDDs stacked on top of each other for about 5 years now. I remember reading one of the HDD's temp being way higher than the other 2. Not sure why but it didn't really affect the performance much. 2 of them has been running for 8 years and the only time they failed me was in RAID0 configuration. So...yea.