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HD Temperature and Fan Speeds - Am I paranoid???

ceres said:
I´d venture to say that you have a Hitachi drive installed. Those run hotter than the WD and Seagates Apple also installs in iMacs. I had a few AL iMacs on my desk the past 6weeks. The one with the Hitachi drive made the hdd fan speed up to 1800rpm, the computers with Seagate and WD stayed around 1200rpm. While Leon is right about heat being a hdd killer, I´d check Hitachi´s spec sheet in case you actually have such a drive installed.
Click to expand...

Hi,

Firstly, to those of you who have helped out with some excellent advice and opinions, a big thankyou, HOWEVR, to those that want to Hijack threads to preach about one platform being better than the other, please do so elsewhere.....you're particularly unhelpful.

...now back to the topic that I originally started..

Well, in fact it's a Western Digital drive. Also the spec sheets make reference to 60 Degrees C being the Maximum operating temperature....yes, I've read them as I have had WD RAID drives fail in servers who's fans had failed previously and were not picked up by Admins. This is why I'm somewhat concerned about the issue. The Maximum temperature is not designed to be a 'sustained' temperature either.

The Fans in my machine are reset back to their defaults at the moment to try and get a good 'baseline' reading. My Server which is camped out under a desk with little ventilation, never has it's HD run over 45Degrees C. Right now it's running at 39C

Unless the room is unreasonably hot...which mine isn't, NOBODY should be having to compensate for excessive heat in a 'sealed' computer where the configuration is set by the manufacturer, just like IBM does on all their mid-range equipment (AS/400s is my area of expertise) where they specify how many fans and how fast they go - and in a standard office they work just fine.

I'm not interested in getting into arguments about which Computer is better than the other and MS versus Apple. but more about having to override the manufacturers settings just to make them safe. Also, I'd be interested in knowing which Hard Disks are the coolest (temperature of course!) at idle.

SMCFancontrol certainly brings the temperature down, which is what I'm doing to be certain.

Cheers
 
Siriosys said:
Hi,

SMCFancontrol certainly brings the temperature down, which is what I'm doing to be certain.

Cheers
Click to expand...

What minimum RPM are you setting? I think the default minimum is 1400? Any ideas about increased rate of fan RPM and fan mortality?

I'm quite tempted to crank up the RPM on my HD fan. It's a Western Digital and seems to run between 47 and 50 degrees celcius. The HD fan never gets anywhere near 5000 RPM which smcFanControl suggests it's capable of.

Thanks for creating this thread mate, has been a great read so far. :) I've been reading threads on this forum on and off for about 2 years. The threads are normally so informative I don't need to register, but I'm very interested to know more about this topic!

Edit: I should add that I had a iMac G5 that suffered a dead HD in less than 2 years. The iMac ran mostly 24 hrs a day from purchase in my house that was not cooled. Outside temps can get up to 42 degrees celcius where I was living. No idea what the ambient temp was inside.
 
Hi Tim,

the 'Apple Default' minimum settings are as follows:

ODD - 700
HDD - 1200
CPU - 1200

My minimum settings using SMCFanControl are as follows:

ODD - 700
HDD - 1755
CPU - 1200

Currently, using the fan speeds above and with a supposed 'Ambient' temperature of 24degreesC, the 'HD' related temps are as follows:

Drive Bay: 46DegreesC
Hard Disk: 48DegreesC

Although I can kind of hear the fans (only just), my external disk I have next to my iMac makes far more noise so I don't really notice any fan noise - I'm aware this bothers some people, but if you spend enough time in a Server room with mid-range to mainframe equipment you almost begin to tune-out fan noise...that or my Tinitus is so loud now I can hear fan noise 24x7 and can no longer recognize silence!

Interestingly, if you spend some time on the Wester Digital website you will find a number of articles relating to Drive Temperature. The first one I found was a spec sheet for the installed drive in my iMac. ...the big 'factor' affecting HD performance is heat - they say so themselves...and this model is marketed specifically as being a 'cool running' drive.

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2879-001146.pdf

So this then begs the question - at what point is the drive running too hot? The detailed specs answer that question:

Here are the WD specs for the drive in our imacs. NOTE the 'Thermal Gradient Maximum' is 20 DegreesC / hour and also note the Maximum Operating Temperature. Within an hour of my iMac being on, it gets from 29 - 53 degreesC with the fans at Apple 'Default' speeds. Occasionally, it climbs to 57 degreesC. This is OUTSIDE of the recommended specs by Western Digital......Both for the Operating Max and Thermal Gradient Max

Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature 5°C to 55°C (41°F to 131°F)
Humidity 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient 20°C/hour (maximum)
Non-Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature -40°C to 65°C (-40°F to 149°F)
Humidity 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient 30°C/hour (maximum)

So, I guess to those of us using some form of fan speed over-ride, we're probably best to keep doing so.....****, I think I probably just answered my own original post:D



PS - I wouldn't be so paranoid if you didn't all talk about me behind my back:D
 
Siriosys said:
Interestingly, if you spend some time on the Wester Digital website you will find a number of articles relating to Drive Temperature. The first one I found was a spec sheet for the installed drive in my iMac. ...the big 'factor' affecting HD performance is heat - they say so themselves...and this model is marketed specifically as being a 'cool running' drive.

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2879-001146.pdf

So this then begs the question - at what point is the drive running too hot? The detailed specs answer that question:

Here are the WD specs for the drive in our imacs. NOTE the 'Thermal Gradient Maximum' is 20 DegreesC / hour and also note the Maximum Operating Temperature. Within an hour of my iMac being on, it gets from 29 - 53 degreesC with the fans at Apple 'Default' speeds. Occasionally, it climbs to 57 degreesC. This is OUTSIDE of the recommended specs by Western Digital......Both for the Operating Max and Thermal Gradient Max

Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature 5°C to 55°C (41°F to 131°F)
Humidity 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient 20°C/hour (maximum)
Non-Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature -40°C to 65°C (-40°F to 149°F)
Humidity 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient 30°C/hour (maximum)

So, I guess to those of us using some form of fan speed over-ride, we're probably best to keep doing so.....****, I think I probably just answered my own original post:D



PS - I wouldn't be so paranoid if you didn't all talk about me behind my back:D
Click to expand...



That;

Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature 5°C to 55°C (41°F to 131°F)
Humidity 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient 20°C/hour (maximum)
Non-Operating Temperature and Humidity
Temperature -40°C to 65°C (-40°F to 149°F)
Humidity 5-95% RH non-condensing
Thermal Gradient 30°C/hour (maximum)

is not in This; document

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2879-001146.pdf

Please try to use relevant references!

link the web-page if that's where the quote came from.

Thanks,

Fellow Paranoid.
 
FYI. My HD was running at 46-48 degrees while running SMC at 2500. Things worked fine until my superdrive busted. Took it to the apple store to get repaired and while running diagnositic tests, they found that my HD was failing. They installed a new one that now runs at 50-52 degrees with the same fan speed. The computer is from January of this year. Not really sure what to do, and tired of lugging it around from store to store (24inch imac). Should I just back up my data and use it until something happens, or should I bring it back to the shop??? I have apple care.

Thanks in advance,

-Paul
 
If someone could chime in I would appreciate it. Need to know what to do here.

Thanks,

-Paul
 
ppolios said:
If someone could chime in I would appreciate it. Need to know what to do here.

Thanks,

-Paul
Click to expand...


im pretty paranoid about it too. i heard a small popping noise twice from my iMac. nothing too loud but it still had me thinking. i have applecare and a external hard drive running on Time Machine so i'm not worried about it. my applecare expires december of 2010 so i'm pretty set and my external hard drive has a warranty until april 2011 and its pretty unlikely both my iMac and external hard drive will die at the same time....God forbid. it would be an inconvenience but oh well. **** happens. just enjoy your machines and have a good backup plan.
 
i have a WD3200AAJS drive on my 25 inch alu imac and at my usual 25 degrees ambient temperature i get a average 50 degrees temp on the hard drive bay , 55-56 under sustained load , and i never seen it go go over 57 , with default 1200 fan speed
 
valexa said:
i have a WD3200AAJS drive on my 25 inch alu imac and at my usual 25 degrees ambient temperature i get a average 50 degrees temp on the hard drive bay , 55-56 under sustained load , and i never seen it go go over 57 , with default 1200 fan speed
Click to expand...


Wow, that's a mighty bump from the past for this thread,

Try this;

wazgilbert said:
I have just been trialling this over the last few days, and can say I'm a very happy bunny. It was developed for the Macbook pro, and adapted by another developer for the iMac, and we thank them muchly.


http://www.derman.com/Download/Special/iMacFanControl.html

iMacFanControlC.png


iMacFanControlF.png


It effectively does for you what you would achieve by watching Temp Monitor like a hawk and actively adjusting SMCfancontrol continuously.

I've found that the preset minimum temps with minimum fan speeds caused too much fan noise, but hedging them in to 40degC min and 80degC max, causes a quiet system on web-browsing, with temps in the region of 40degC (HDD 45) and when using graphics and cpu loading, the temps barely rise, but the fans do rise to the occasion!

At last the temp response system apple should have delivered.

Now I can rest easy.

All we wait for is Apple to wake up and include this in 10.5.6 or something.
Click to expand...

^^ what I said...


And I'm sure Leon will love this after all this time;

Waz eats hat. om nom nom nom.

xoxoxox
 
I think this thread is worth a bump.
I bought a 3.06 ghz 500 gb imac early 2008. The drive it came with eventually failed in 13 months. It was a WDC SE16 500gb. I remember seeing the HDD temp through ISTAT pro always around 130 deg F. Wasn't monitoring heat at the time, didn't think anything of it. It would soon lock up and freeze whenever it hit around 130F.

I recently changed the HDD out and put in a 1TB WDC Caviar Black. If anything, this drive is even hotter. My idle temps easily hit 130 deg F also. And under load easily jump. All this and the fans NEVER spin up from default of 1199 rpm for HDD and CPU and 699 rpm for Optical Drive. What's going on????

So basically our HDD's are cooking in this thing. Apple is actively shipping imacs with these drives now (WDC 7200 rpm Caviar Blacks and Caviar SE). If you go on WDC's site you'll see that the recommended operating temps are 5-55 C or 41F to 131F. My new 1TB got up to 139F the other day. All I was doing was moving files from my external onto my new internal and downloading apple updates. Temp in my room was about 77F. I was blowing an 8" fan also and that didn't do anything.

Came across SMCFanControl and Imac Fan Control and they help to lower it, but I'm sick of having to keep monitoring this with fear of another drive failure. Yes I am TimeMachining, but am disappointed in Apple for ignoring the HDD manufacturer's operating temp specs.

Anyone else? I'm sure in a yr or two we'll see more reports about Imac HDD failures.
 
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