Hard Drive Temperatures

I have two hard drives in my system at present

Their temperatures are always (have been for the last few weeks anyway), according to speedfan 4.45, around 41-43 C, ambient I guess being ~20C

Is this too hot for comfortable consistent temperature ? I'd guess not, but it's higher than I remember the 'system' one (80GB Barracuda) being in the past.

There are two other which trouble me...both disks are the same temperature to within 2C, yet one is in the closely confined space of its hole inside case, and other is where it should not be, 'flapping in the breeze' resting on the edge of the case. The secondary is a 320GB Seagate 3.5 series, very different from the system disk, and little used. Despite these differences in disk type and ventilation potential, they are both at the same temperature as I've said.

The other thing is that my computer is set up in Ppwer options to run in Energy Star mode which apparently turns off the HDDs after 30mins. So I leave my computer often for a couple of hours and when I return to it the screen is black (off) as expected but when I when I 'wake' it and immediately look at the speedfan "control panel" it tells me that temperature of both disks is....in the low 40's C. It's as if they have not been 'turned off' at all !

Is all this to be expected ?

Dumb_Question
21.May.2015

Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP Home/SP3
Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1 'Xenon4'
RAM - 2GB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
PSU - OCZ 500W
BFG GeForce 6800GT graphics card in AGP slot

 

The temperatures being below 50°C is very good. Why they don't drop after a couple of hours is a mistery. I suspect the temperature rises quickly but, I'll check tomorrow when I turn on my PC.

 

in a very similar PC in a different part of the house with an 80GB WD HD speccy gives the temperature of that as 33C, which is more like the figure I remember.

Dumb_Question
21.May.2015

 

Speccy gives my 80 GB HDD temperature as 34°C. Also keep in mind, different brands and possibly different rotational speeds.

 

If you visit your drive's website and look at the data sheet for your drive you will find the specs for its operating temperature. For the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 SATA, for example, you can see it has an operating temperature range of 0-60°C.

Unless you are using "green" drives AND have your computer running in "green" mode, the drive motors are spinning all the time the computer is running. So it makes sense the drive temps would be close.

If you suspect your drives are still spinning after a 1/2 hour in sleep mode, remove the side panel of the case and walk away. Come back in several hours or better yet, the next morning to ensure enough time for all to completely cool down and without waking the computer VERY CAREFULLY touch bare metal of the case interior to discharge any static in your body. Then CAREFULLY touch the drives. If spinning, you will be able to feel a slight vibration and feel warmth and most likely hear them spinning too.