USB External Drives running warm

[Jimkirk363]

Hi Guys, ive been looking online and so far it seems that seagate drives do run rather warm.

I Have a 2 year old Samsung D3 with a seagate drive in (since seagate bought out samsung) and 2 of seagates new Backup + Hubs, a 4 and 6TB which are less than 6 months old, here is a link to the 6TB version....

http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6558862

 

Now the drives work fantastic with no issues but Hard Disk Sentinel which i use to monitor health of drives registers them rising to 53*c and just sits there and doesnt get any warmer and works fine, when u feel the casing of the externals they are not even warm to touch so im wondering if this is a firmware bug.  The only reason i say firmware is because a friend of mine was having an issue with his Nvme drive getting warm and when i did research it was all over the WD forums of other people with exact same issues on theirs stating since they updated drive firmware they had drive reporting warmer temperatures.

[MedievalMatt]

22 minutes ago, jimkirk363 said:

Hi Guys, ive been looking online and so far it seems that seagate drives do run rather warm.

I Have a 2 year old Samsung D3 with a seagate drive in (since seagate bought out samsung) and 2 of seagates new Backup + Hubs, a 4 and 6TB which are less than 6 months old, here is a link to the 6TB version....

http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6558862

 

Now the drives work fantastic with no issues but Hard Disk Sentinel which i use to monitor health of drives registers them rising to 53*c and just sits there and doesnt get any warmer and works fine, when u feel the casing of the externals they are not even warm to touch so im wondering if this is a firmware bug.  The only reason i say firmware is because a friend of mine was having an issue with his Nvme drive getting warm and when i did research it was all over the WD forums of other people with exact same issues on theirs stating since they updated drive firmware they had drive reporting warmer temperatures.

anytime you have moving parts there is friction... friction means heat.  to a certain extent this is normal.  HDDs typically thermally manage themselves and 53c (depending on where the temp is being read from) is probably normal. 

 

NVMe SSD (and SSDs in general) are MUCH more susceptible to heat.  Since that affects the controllers ability to clock high, and even the NAND flash from writing properly.  Not so with HDDs which are magnetic.  and unless you are talking hot enough to melt steel, magnetism works at any temp.

[MarcCz]

It is a generally accepted rule that warmer drives = shorter drive life. That said I wouldn't worry too much about it the manufacture designed that enclosure for that drive, so in theory it should be okay. That said these drives are not designed for continuous operation I'd plug it in once every week or two to run a back up, if you need it constantly you could consider shucking it and turning it into an internal drive.

 

and remember always, always, always keep two completely separate copies of everything important

[Zodiark1593]

39 minutes ago, MarcCz said:

 

 

and remember always, always, always keep three completely separate copies of everything important

My old professor says that data doesn't really exist unless you have three copies on separate systems.

[Jimkirk363]

ive not plugged it in for continuous use im just backing data to them from my 3 pcs.

[seagate_surfer]

Hey OP. Most of our drives nowadays have a 0-60º C normal operating system temp spec'ed to them, so while it is towards the higher end of that, it is still within range and shouldn't be too much to worry about. If you like, you can grab our free diagnostic software SeaTools to scan the health of the drive.

[Jimkirk363]

@seagate_surfer its still concerning that even out of the external caddy it still hits 46*c.

 

If it gets any warmer im gonna be seen by the international spacestation in orbit!