# Can a hard drive go over 55 Degrees?



## musicistabest (Jul 1, 2008)

Hi I I doing an error scan and my hard drive temp is at 55 degrees and I need to finish the error scan can the hard drive go over 55 degrees I have two it is not the one with the operating system on it.


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## Kursah (Jul 1, 2008)

55C? That's pretty warm dude...don't know if that's in damage territory or not, I would assume that's too warm tho. I'd look up the specs for your HDD if I were you, it should have some thermal specs too. Ya need some airflow over those HDD's you have...my WD 640 is in front of one of my 120mm intake fans...even in this warmer weather it sticks at right around 30C...coolest running drive I've ever owned though...usually my Seagate was around 35-38C.


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## smig (Jul 3, 2008)

is it 55cel. 
this is hot ... my HD never go over 35 I think


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## tkpenalty (Jul 3, 2008)

musicistabest said:


> Hi I I doing an error scan and my hard drive temp is at 55 degrees and I need to finish the error scan can the hard drive go over 55 degrees I have two it is not the one with the operating system on it.



55*C isn't really a safe operating temperature. Expect the bearings to die out pretty quickly.


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## Mad-Matt (Jul 3, 2008)

my two samsung drives stay fairly cool, but my 2 seagate drives get burning hot to the touch if i run them outside the case. normaly around 35-40 in the case with the 120mm case fan infront.


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## lemonadesoda (Jul 3, 2008)

It's a hot summer. HDD temps will be up.

Problem is, you two HDDs are slapped together like a jam sandwich.  When the job is finished, you need to turn off your PC, open it up, and see if you can rearrange the drives so there is a nice 2 inch gap between them. The bigger the gap, the better.  That will help a great deal.

Then you need to check if you have an exit fan at the back of the PC. If not, you should consider one.


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## xfire (Jul 3, 2008)

How are they arranged inside the case? Are they put one on top of the other? If so give them some breathing space. Also got to power options in control panel and let the system turn off the hard disk if it is idle for 3 minutes.


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## WhiteLotus (Jul 3, 2008)

i have mine with a bay in the middle free, and a fan blowing over them, no heat issues for me


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## psyko12 (Jul 3, 2008)

Mines around 32c idle and gaming or doing stuff with disk accessing....


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## msgclb (Jul 3, 2008)

Yesterday I wouldn't have know the answer but as it happens I noticed that a couple of my WD HDDs are runnng at 60 degrees c. From a Google search I was sure that the max would be 55 degrees c. I went to the WD support site and found the specifications for my HDDs. 

Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature: 5°C to 55°C (41°F to 131°F)
Humidity: 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient: 20°C/hour (maximum)

Non-Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature: -40°C to 65°C (-40°F to 149°F)
Humidity: 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient: 30°C/hour (maximum)


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## Kreij (Jul 3, 2008)

Google did a massive survey called Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population.

If I remember correctly the sweet spot for hard drives was at ~40C.
I always thought, "The cooler, the better", but their survey of 100,000s of hard drives does not show that. Too cool and the failure rate increases.



> We first look at the correlation between average temperature
> during the observation period and failure. Figure
> 4 shows the distribution of drives with average temperature
> in increments of one degree and the corresponding
> ...



All in all, a very interesting read.

That being said, 55C is too warm. It's not even on Google's graphs.
They stop at 50C (page 6 of the report)


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## suraswami (Jul 3, 2008)

Some of the Older WDs tend to run hot.  Is your WD a refurbished one?  Then it will run hot.  But nothing to worry about.  55C is normal.  Just put a front intake fan that will blow on those HDDs, they will be good.

My 2 refurbished WD Hdds does that.  Got it as RMA replacement, but they work fine for almost 3 years now (knock on wood).

I think its just wrong caliberation of the temperature guage inside the HDD.

Infact in the same Ultra microfly case with a 60mm fan blowing accross on 2 HDDs my Refurb 40G runs at 42C idle and brand new 320GB WD HD runs at 32C idle.

Any HDD read would make the 40G to around 45C.  Defrag will make it run around 55C in summer.

My other 80G refurb runs at 42C with a 120mm fan blowing at it.  In the same case brand new 160G WD runs at 31C idle.  They are in a well ventilated case.


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