jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

A couple of years ago, I made a wooden box to hold two hard drives for doing backups. I can switch each one on individually, and I can also turn on a fan. These drives have never gotten hot - until now.

I've been doing a lot of copying from my computer to the drives, and I noticed that one gets hot, but the other doesn't. It's the drive that sitting below the other one that gets hot, even with the fan on. It's only when I'm copying files for a long time that it gets hot, but the upper driver never gets even to 100°. I can't give you a time for "a long time," but I do have to keep my eye on it and let it cool if it gets to 114°.

I do long copying so infrequently that it probably isn't necessary to make a new box, but I just thought I'd pass this along. I use CrystalDiskInfo to check the temperature of the drives. The SSD is always cool.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

I would consider replacing the drive.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

It isn't that old - not many hours on it.

I tried something else. A few years ago, I got an aluminum box for mounting hard drives. There is an on/off switch and a fan. It holds four drives, but I have only two inside it. When I turn the box on, any drives inside it start spinning. I tried using that for a while, and the drives also got hot, so that fan doesn't help much, either. I'm going to see if I can use a better fan and maybe put one at the front.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

The Drive getting hot may be telling you, it's time to replace me.

Najataagihe

One drive all of a sudden getting hot when the other one doesn't is a sure sign of pending platter bearing failure.

The main bearings no longer have enough lube and are getting hot due to friction.

It is not a function of access time, it's a function of calendar time.


Several years?

You need to replace the drive.


You might have months, you might have minutes.

There is no way to predict time of failure.


If the other drive is the same age (it seems it is, from your post), I would replace it, too.

Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA

Hard drives do tend to get pretty hot and can be normal.
If a bearing is wearing you can sometimes hear it whirring a bit.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

Without seeing any physical details it is hard to suggest anything. It is not impossible that the bearings are going on the drive getting hotter however I would consider these other possibilities as well. My experience is that drive failure is more usually shown by it just stopping working. Or see if you can read the SMART attributes of the drive as these often show the highest temp a drive has reached.
1. The top drive is a 5400rpm and the bottom drive is 7200rpm and it will get hotter. Need to know if the drives are the same model number.
2. If the drives are directly mounted one above the other and the top drive has space above it then radiation will make the top drive run cooler. The bottom drive has no way to radiate any heat off the top of it. Remember heat always rises unless it has really good airflow over it.
3. The fans efficiency will depend on where it is mounted, which way it is blowing and if there is an entrance or exit for the airflow. I have seen many boxes where parts of the enclosure don't get any airflow because of a bad design.
4. The fan is still spinning but it has clogged bearing so running too slow.
5. A lot of the time manfs (and users) use a too small diameter fan running at too high a speed so it just thrashes the air in a small area. This is done to keep the costs down but also to allow for a smaller box. A large diameter fan running slowly is always better than a small fan running faster. The larger fans also tend to have a longer life because they don't suck as much air through the bearings. And the type of fan also makes a big difference. A fan will have a sleeve bearing, a single ball-race, or two ball-races - first is worst. A lot of people don't like using ball-race fans because they reckon they are noisy and they might be. But a noisy ball-race can tell you either of two things - the fan is a very cheap one or the bearing is on its way out so time to replace it. Sleeve bearings just stop with no warning. So a large slow running bearing fan is much preferred to a small fast sleeve bearing fan. Keep well away from 1" (25mm) size fans - they are crap.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Well, actually...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The drive that gets warmer is an HGST Ultrastar. It's been turned on 391 times, and it has run for 139 hours. People who are into numbers can figure the significance of those three digits in both categories.

My point was that the drive that gets warmer is below another drive, so it doesn't get the air flow. It warms up only when I do a lot of copying of files. I turn it off when it gets to about 115°. The operating limit for drives is supposedly 123°. With my regular backup routing, it isn't on very long, so it doesn't get hot.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

Jerry I just hope in the short future you don't tell us it fails and you lost what was on it. Back it up.

lindysue12

I hope you find a fix your trouble.

I have a problem I hope someone can help me with. I painstakingly installed a Samsung 850 SSD and it does not seem to work. I was told that I have to install Win 10 from my computer to the drive. I'm troubled with this problem. Can anyone steer me in the right direction on how to do this? Than you

Curtis_Lowe Loc: Georgia

Mechanical hard drives are always spinning, correct? So copying only moves the heads and adds small amount of current to magnetize the platter?

Do the drives stop when not in copy mode?

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

If you didn't put them in a box, would you need a fan to cool them? I recently got a device in which you just stand the drives the drives vertically but they are not enclosed.

Najataagihe

As is usual with these things, it all depends.

If you installed it as an additional drive, you shouldn't have to do anything to store files on it.

If, however, you installed it as the C: drive (boot drive), you will have to install Win10 onto it.


The best way is to load WIN10 from the USB drive or other physical media on which it is distributed.

The way you are discussing requires you to install it as other than the C: drive, boot from your old C: drive and load a bootable copy of Win10 onto the SSD.


If that is confusing, get an IT guy to help you with it, in person or by remote control of your desktop.

11bravo

If the original top drive never gets hot with prolonged writes, while the bottom one does, then I'd suggest swapping the drives' positions in the box and see if the problem moves. If the "hot" drive stays hot, then maybe it's not the ventilation. If the problem moves, then it's the ventilation.

You might consider a stronger fan. I use SilverStone FM121-B 120mm Case Cooling Fans, though no longer available via Newegg. 800-2400 RPM Max, 110.03 CFM, 17-39.5 dBA. Not exactly quiet at top speed, but having worked in server rooms and computer labs for 25 years, I don't notice fan noise anymore. Besides, what I can hear is just white noise. I bought a number of them when they were available so use them for front case fans for my 8 drive bay desktop cases.

I know what you mean about poor ventilation in 4 bay drive boxes. My solution was opening the front doors, removing the front grills, with SilverStone fans at the front controlled with a SilverStone FP33S Aluminum 3.5-Inch Drive Bay/Expansion Slot with Independent Fan Controllers (again no longer available). The fans are powered by a Monoprice PCI Power Panel (back panel expansion slot) with (3) 5.25 4-Pin Power Connectors (102372) in my old desktop. Not really elegant, noisy, but very functional. Never got around to cleaning things up as I'm more of a "function over form" type. Besides I have a number of these boxes, and easy to move the fans when I had them holding media.

I know you once posted you didn't have good luck with a Rosewill RX-358 case (noisy and didn't keep the temps down), but I think you must have gotten a bad one. I have a number of these single drive external cases, and they do work with no noise (I have to look inside the top grill to see if the fan is spinning). I just bought 2 more of these, now work with 8TB drives (Newegg reviewers have reported using with higher capacity but I'll stick within the stated specs). I always provision my HDD's (long format, full chkdsk, and a StableBit full scan, one right after the other, 24 hr reads/writes and a RX-358 does keep it cool. Currently doing one now, and it's 95 degrees in a 76 degree room 6 hours in).

I'm a big fan (pun) of Hard Disk Sentinel (paid) for keeping an eye on temps. What I like is you can set audible alarms with adjustable thresholds and actions (as in a system shutdown if the temps get too hot). Convenient when the computer is working and you don't need to be around to monitor. I had a Buffalo external drive, no fan, and to keep it cool, used a 6" desk fan. If I forgot to switch on the fan, the audible alarm would remind me. Has worked with every external HDD case, both case and toaster docks, as long as the case provides the temp via USB connection. Also provides health info, drive info (as in S/N which makes it easy to copy and paste into the drive's volume label without having to get out the magnifying glass), various tests, and a nice overview. I have the program on every computer; pack pricing is available. Well maintained and author responsive.

And thanks for your many posts recommending the UltraStar drives. I'm a big fan of HGST drives; one in my HTPC has been running for 5 years+, basically 24/7. Shame they got bought. But based on your recommendations, saw that NewEgg marketeer was having a sale on 8TB new UltraStars, bought one, verified it was new, and just bought another. Will put my photos on them as the HGST 4TB NAS drives are getting full (I'm a pack rat). Thanks.

Media boxes cooling solution