Hdd's very hot

[CFu]

Hello,

Is it normal that my three internal 3.5" hdd's are very hot to the touch (90°C)?

I have been running an antivirus product on them for three straight days, so they have been busy. Also, I have a midi-tower with a lot of components in them.. so there's not much air to go around. I just have one 'AVC' fan in it; a small one.

PC case contents:
- three 3.5" IDE hdd's (Western Digital)
- GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB (no extra power plug, uses same PSU as everything)
- PSU for everything (Sweex 350 W)

One of the main problems is that the hdd's are all stacked up vertically next to each other. I don't know if that's ok. This OEM box originally came with one hdd, vertically mounted (it is hot aswell). But the other two are just dangling loosely about.. vibrating against the PC casing now and then. I have to fix that, which is hard, because of the limited space.

Is it ok for hdd's to be vertically mounted?

Thanks

--
CFu

 

[clacker]

I think you need to give them a bit of a break. You kind of answered your question in your question there, running it for three days will cause it to be busy so try not to overrun it.

 

[Chipeater]

Hard drives will work in any orientation. I usually let them run for about 30 minutes in whatever position they end up mounted in before partitioning and formating for the first time. I don't know that it makes any difference, but it can't hurt to wait until the drive is up to operating temperature before installing an operating system or data.

It is a good idea to have some air space around each hard drive if you can, with at least a little air flow. You should be able to run your hard drives 24/7 without them getting overheated. I recommend that your hard drive cooling be sufficient to keep them below 60 degrees C during operation, including a virus scan that takes 72 hours.

 

[Indigo]

Waiting to write data on a drive, unless it was exposed to extreme cold or heat prior to use, is totally unnecessary. Hard drives are pretty robust little devices.

Ideally I try to keep my drives in the 40-50C range, so 90C is way out there, and could likely lead to data loss issues. I'd get some active cooling on the drives ASAP.

 

[Chipeater]

Waiting to write data on a drive, unless it was exposed to extreme cold or heat prior to use, is totally unnecessary. Hard drives are pretty robust little devices.
[...]

But, it does make me feel better about doing it...even if it doesn't really matter.