DIY HDD Coolers

You're joking right?

For a CPU that's actively cooled, yes, I'd say that's pretty normal. For an HDD that has passive cooling, not to mention moving parts and a very sensitive head that floats micrometers from a plate that's spinning at anything between 5400 and 7200 RPM... no, I wouldn't call that a normal temp. You do realize that that head can expand and contract with temp variations... the risk of a head crash increases if temp variations are not kept as low as possible. Not to mention the control circuits might fry with anything above 50C.

 

Most hardrives have a recommended operating temperature between 5 and 60 degrees.... some drives are up to 70C...

Plenty of drives that have lasted decades have and do run in the realms of 50-60C.... huge number of OEM built systems lack any kind of airflow at all around their drives over the decades they've been installed to the point that having ran copious numbers of disk diagnostics, that seeing a value of 58-68C certainly isn't uncommon.

The only time i've seen drives via diagnostic software reporting "overtemp" which is one of the notifications that SMART reports when it's been tripped, have been almost ALWAYS due to a sensor error, because frankly hundreds if not thousands or 100's of thousands of degrees would resulted in a melted drive. These drives commonly haven't had any bad sectors or poor performance though, it's just a SMART sensor glitch, it happens.

As i said, i would be more concerned with temperatures at or above 70C, but that really depends on the drive. I know several of the high performance WD Black drives i believe state a maximum of 60*C for recommended operating temperatures, while others have in the past stated a maximum temp of 70 or 65 or somewhere around there. So it's usually best to refer to the manufacturer's recommendation. However also keep in mind that these values are usually well above board in terms of their safe range so that they can provide warranty provided they haven't be breached, the few hardrive experts i know say that the operating range is usually at least 20 degrees below what they can actually handle.

Either way, it's not at all uncommon to see 50-60C temperatures on many drives. It's been that way for decades.

Also numerous lengthy studies have been done regarding drive life and temperatures, and they don't agree, some attribute to a warmer life resulting in greater failure rates, while others provide just as much data that shows otherwise. The correlation isn't there.

 

Don't tell me these studies are done by HDD manufacturers... they're not relevant in that case.

My experience is --> keep the drive cool, disable head parking, APM, AAM and the drive will probably last forever. I've got 6 drives in a DIY NAS at home that were officially pronounced as failing by colleagues at work with relocated sectors SMART parameter in red that still work... for two years now. I've been keeping them cool with a separate cooler just like the one in the pics for each of them, disabled head parking, APM, AAM and they haven't had one relocated sector since I did that.

I also assembled a similar rig at work for a DIY NAS there (it was just for testing purposes, but eventually ended up being used by us, the IT sector), also with drives that were officially failing, guess what... once again, not one relocated sector since I assembled it (about a year and a half ago).

My conclusion: keep the drives cool, disable the stupid head parking thing and/or AAM and/or APM and yes, the drives will practically last forever.

60C as a "recommended temp" for a drive is just asking for trouble. Manufacturers have one thing on their mind - how to sell more drives. If that means recommending working conditions that no one in their right mind would recommend, they will.