What's a good operating temperature for hard disks?

Well, decided to set the alert temperatures on my HD Sentinel configs.
By default HDS has the green setting set to 40C or less, yellow is
between 40-50C, while red is above 50. I'm thinking these are
conservative. My internal drives typically operate just below or just
above 40C, even while idle. And they get upto at most 48C when really
active. I have an external USB drive which is typically above 50 at
idle, and is above 55 under mild loads; it will get above 60 under heavy
load, but that's not what a USB drive is typically used for.

So I'm thinking I'm going to set all the alert levels up by 5C. Instead
of between 40-50C, it'll be between 45-55C? Think I'm taking too much of
a chance?

Yousuf Khan

Yes the default ranges you described are conservative- but that's the
point. You normally want to keep the temperatures in a conservative
range, & without huge temperature swings, to ensure heat isn't a
factor in reduced life or reliability. So IMHO it is both
conservative and fair.

The operating temperatures you are experiencing are a little high for
my taste. They seem to indicate that you're probably not using the
greatest case, even assuming ambient room temp was a little high. USB
drive boxes tend to not be super reliable or capable so I wouldn't be
comfortable reproducing their operating conditions elsewhere. They
seem to work best for me when I have a fan blowing on them, or they're
open, and when I generally treat them with kid gloves. But there are
multiple issues going on with those- temperature and jostling of the
drives, as well as temperate of the USB bridge board.

Are you taking too much of a chance? Right now I'm not aware of any
really good statistical data about operating temperature and premature
drive failure & flakiness so I don't really know. I have found though
that operating HDDs in the mid 30's to low 40's (even under full load)
is a range normally easily attainable and which yields satisfactory
results. One additional thing to consider is the higher drive temps
are often an indicator of higher temps elsewhere in the system. While
the temp may be a little high but OK for a drive that may be a symptom
of a problem elsewhere. Basically if the system is of any importance
to you it's better to be conservative. The cooler and more stable the
temp the better.

Yousuf Khan wrote:
Well, decided to set the alert temperatures on my HD Sentinel configs.
By default HDS has the green setting set to 40C or less, yellow is
between 40-50C, while red is above 50. I'm thinking these are
conservative. My internal drives typically operate just below or just
above 40C, even while idle. And they get upto at most 48C when really
active. I have an external USB drive which is typically above 50 at
idle, and is above 55 under mild loads; it will get above 60 under heavy
load, but that's not what a USB drive is typically used for.

So I'm thinking I'm going to set all the alert levels up by 5C. Instead
of between 40-50C, it'll be between 45-55C? Think I'm taking too much of
a chance?

Yousuf Khan

Given that most drives have an absolute maximum rating of 55C, I
think these values are not very conservative, but realistic.
A drive that gets to 60C or above is inadequately cooled and
may die early.

My advice would be to aim for 50C or below for normal operation
and accept peaks of up to 55C but not more.

Arno