Well, after having my hard drives too hot this summer (above 45C), I added 4 exhaust fans to my CM590 case. 

My temps went down to between 26C-39C.  Now that it is getting colder here in New England, my drive temps are the following:

 

Disk Temperature Status

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Parity Disk [sdc]: Spun-Down (DiskId: WDC_WD15EARS)

Disk 1 [sdd]: 25?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 2 [sdf]: 25?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 3 [sdg]: 18?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

Disk 4 [sdh]: 19?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

 

Are these OK?  Should I worry about the Samsung drives being 18C and 19C?  My paranoia stems from this thread :

 

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1916.0

 

I am worried that these temperatures will affect the longevity of my hard drives. 

 

CJ

Before we go to far lets conform the temps are real.

 

What is the ambient temperature in the room the server is in?

Sammy drives are notorious for reporting wrong (too low) temps.

 

Always report drive and CPU temps as number of degrees above ambient....that is the standard practice.

Before we go to far lets conform the temps are real.

 

What is the ambient temperature in the room the server is in?

 

Well, my house has gone down to 60F overnight.  I don't know exactly what the room temperature was when the unRAID status email was sent  .  I guess I could check in the morning before the heat turns on and see what the hard drives and room temperature is at.

60F = approx 15C, so you are in the right ballpark.

 

Joe L.

Well the room temperature this morning was 63F.  Here are the temperatures of the hard drive in my unRAID server after spinning up all drives:

 

Disk Temperature Status

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Parity Disk [sdc]: 22?C (DiskId: WDC_WD15EARS)

Disk 1 [sdd]: 22?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 2 [sdf]: 22?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 3 [sdg]: 16?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

Disk 4 [sdh]: 16?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

 

So 63F is 17.22C.  I see that the Samsung drives aren't reporting the correct temperature.  My main concerns stems from this quote from the thread I mentioned in my first post:

 

A common misconception is that a colder hard drive will last longer than a hotter hard drive. The Google study showed the reverse -- "lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates". Hard drives with S.M.A.R.T.-reported average temperatures below 27 C had failure rates worse than hard drives with the highest reported average temperature of 50 C, failure rates at least twice as high as the optimum S.M.A.R.T.-reported temperature range of 36 C to 47 C.[34]

 

Going by the Western Digital and Hitachi drive temps, my hard drives are lower than the 27C mentioned in the quote above.  Should I unplug two of my exhaust fans, or move my unRAID to a closet?  Or, not worry about it.

 

CJ

 

Well the room temperature this morning was 63F.   Here are the temperatures of the hard drive in my unRAID server after spinning up all drives:

 

Disk Temperature Status

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Parity Disk [sdc]: 22?C (DiskId: WDC_WD15EARS)

Disk 1 [sdd]: 22?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 2 [sdf]: 22?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 3 [sdg]: 16?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

Disk 4 [sdh]: 16?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

 

So 63F is 17.22C.  I see that the Samsung drives aren't reporting the correct temperature.  My main concerns stems from this quote from the thread I mentioned in my first post:

 

A common misconception is that a colder hard drive will last longer than a hotter hard drive. The Google study showed the reverse -- "lower temperatures are associated with higher failure rates". Hard drives with S.M.A.R.T.-reported average temperatures below 27 C had failure rates worse than hard drives with the highest reported average temperature of 50 C, failure rates at least twice as high as the optimum S.M.A.R.T.-reported temperature range of 36 C to 47 C.[34]

 

Going by the Western Digital and Hitachi drive temps, my hard drives are lower than the 27C mentioned in the quote above.  Should I unplug two of my exhaust fans, or move my unRAID to a closet?  Or, not worry about it.

 

CJ

 

I'd not worry about it too much or unplug one of the fans and see how the temperatures rise. 

 

It might make sense to look into a fan controller than adjusts the fan speed based on temperature.  Obviously those two disks cannot be colder than ambient, and odds are very high that the temperature in the case it is warmer than the outside.

Where is KYThrill when you need him.    Look here

 

I have always felt that cooler is better.  Although the google study seems to indicate that too cool is not optimal, my personal experience has been that hot is bad and cool is good.  I do believe that wide ranges are bad - so if you have drives that go from 15C to 45C to 15C on a regular basis - that is bad.  But I have drives that sleep ~18C and run ~25C in the winter and do not lose any sleep (nor had any failed drives - knock on wood).

 

I have been thinking, though, about the health and viability of our drives.  We tend to think that we are being "kind" to our unRAID arrays by putting the disks to sleep and only accessing them occasionally (some daily, but in my array some disks can go a whole month without spinning up).  I wonder if this is healthy at all.  A taxi cab will go 300K miles easily, while a grandma's car sitting in a garage and only driven occasionally can start to get major problems with 50K miles.  Would the drives be healthier waking them up for an hour every day?  Would that keep the bearings better lubed and extend rather than shorten life?  There is so little information on this type of thing that it is left to a pure speculation and rationalization.

I too have read that report and was considering turning down my case fans.  I have an Antec 300 case with the standard fans (rear and upper) all set on high.  My server is in my basement which is not heated and I live in Ohio, so I expect them to drop a little as the outside temps go down.

My drive temps are (idle - load/parity):

Parity (WD20EARS): 26°C - 30°C

Data 1 (WD10EARS): 26°C - 30°C

Data 2 (WD1001FALS): 27°C - 31°C

 

I've been considering adding a fan controller but before doing that I think that I'll try the fans on low to see how the tems are.  I know that the article says the ideal temps are 36-47°C but I'm thinking that I want to be under 40°C.  Maybe 35-40°C is the sweet spot.

 

I'd not worry about it too much or unplug one of the fans and see how the temperatures rise. 

 

It might make sense to look into a fan controller than adjusts the fan speed based on temperature.  Obviously those two disks cannot be colder than ambient, and odds are very high that the temperature in the case it is warmer than the outside.

 

Thanks Joe.  I will try unplugging one of the fans to see how much the temperature rises.  I may look into a fan controller.  I know I have one on my motherboard, but I think there is a limitation on how many fans can run off the motherboard.  I am thinking that 5 fans would be too much.

 

I have always felt that cooler is better.  Although the google study seems to indicate that too cool is not optimal, my personal experience has been that hot is bad and cool is good.  I do believe that wide ranges are bad - so if you have drives that go from 15C to 45C to 15C on a regular basis - that is bad.  But I have drives that sleep ~18C and run ~25C in the winter and do not lose any sleep (nor had any failed drives - knock on wood).

 

 

Thanks for the information.  It is reassuring to know that someone else has these temps for there hard drives.  Here is the max temps for a room temperature of 70F:

 

Disk Temperature Status

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Parity Disk [sdc]: 27?C (DiskId: WDC_WD15EARS)

Disk 1 [sdd]: 33?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 2 [sdf]: 34?C (DiskId: Hitachi_HDS72101)

Disk 3 [sdg]: 21?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

Disk 4 [sdh]: 21?C (DiskId: SAMSUNG_HD154UI)

 

So, my range for the hard drives are 22C to 34C (ignoring the Samsung drives).  Is this range acceptable?

 

CJ

 

So, my range for the hard drives are 22C to 34C (ignoring the Samsung drives).  Is this range acceptable?

Yes.

Where is KYThrill when you need him.    Look here

 

I have always felt that cooler is better.  Although the google study seems to indicate that too cool is not optimal, my personal experience has been that hot is bad and cool is good.  I do believe that wide ranges are bad - so if you have drives that go from 15C to 45C to 15C on a regular basis - that is bad.  But I have drives that sleep ~18C and run ~25C in the winter and do not lose any sleep (nor had any failed drives - knock on wood).

 

I have been thinking, though, about the health and viability of our drives.  We tend to think that we are being "kind" to our unRAID arrays by putting the disks to sleep and only accessing them occasionally (some daily, but in my array some disks can go a whole month without spinning up).  I wonder if this is healthy at all.  A taxi cab will go 300K miles easily, while a grandma's car sitting in a garage and only driven occasionally can start to get major problems with 50K miles.  Would the drives be healthier waking them up for an hour every day?  Would that keep the bearings better lubed and extend rather than shorten life?  There is so little information on this type of thing that it is left to a pure speculation and rationalization.

 

You have a point and back in high school and college I used to keep all my drives spun up. However, I stopped that once I started paying my own utility bills!

 

I personally think the biggest factor is the consistency of the operating environment and minimizing thermal expansion and contraction within the components. Under that theory, I don't think waking the drives up helps as it just adds additional heat cycles on the components and lubricants.