November 20, 201213 yr Given that external 3TB are cheaper than internal OEMs, I decided to gamble on two to upgrade parity and add capacity. I've only used external drives as off site backups so I've never really had them always on for really extended periods and as most hdd utilities can't get SMART data off usb drives I've never really had a reading of the temperature. By feel, they all seem to be running on the hot side, but didn't give much thought to it as I turned them off as soon as the backups finished. We'll I'm currently preclearing the newly bought 3TB in their external cases (not going to take them out until they pass preclear for return reasons) for under an hour and their temperatures are already 54C! And still climbing. I'm trying to find an old desk fan I have somewhere to get some airflow over the drives and see if it helps. The drives in the server case never goes above 38C. So this is a bit alarming. From the segate's faq (http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/193771en?language=en_US) the normal operating temperature should be between 5-50C with some new drives up to 60C. Given this, I'm not really surprised by the numerous feedbacks of quickly dying external drives. Anyone know of a Windows or OS X utility that can monitor or get SMART info from a drive in a external USB case? If my other externals backup drives getting that hot, I'm thinking of ripping them out of their original cases and jury mounting them in some old metal SCSI external cases with built in fans.
November 20, 201213 yr A good desk fan blowing across an external USB hard drive makes a HUGE difference. Also, if the drive has bottom air vents, consider using something (i use 1/2" square dowels) to lift the drive off the desk so it can "breathe."
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