New HD in iMac - too hot!?

[discofuel]

I just had my internal HDD replaced with a 2TB Western Digital Black Caviar in my late-2009 iMac.

The service center that installed it told me they had to install a custom HD temperature sensor since the 2TB HD is not an Apple-provided part.

I'm running Temperature Monitor and at idle the hard drive is at 65 degrees C!

Is this normal?

 

[Spike88]

For custom installed 2TB drive, not too sure what it's "normal" temp should be. I bet its slightly hotter then factory 1 TB drive - for the 2009 class.

For my 2010 iMac with 1 TB drive, its "average" temps are shown in http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w251/Spike99-Pictures/New iMac system/InternalTemps2010-08-30.png

If wondering, I installed a Fan Control program and its settings are shown within http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w251/Spike99-Pictures/New iMac system/FanSpeedJune25-2011.png

Some folks recommend to "run factory default" and run until it auto shuts down from heat overload. IMO, this approach is like driving a vehicle until its "too hot" dummy light comes come. When the dummy light comes on, its "too late". Too late because the damage is already done.

For me, I installed 3rd party Fan Control program and every month, I will "tweak" its fan speeds. Minor tweaking to create the coolest internal temps for my iMac. Thus, being very proactive - to keep its insides cooler.

Being an older 2009 iMac, you may want to try a Fan Control Program as well. Especially with your custom 2 TB drive - that most likely runs hotter then a 1 TB factory drive.

Good luck....

 

[Detrius]

65° C is borderline overheating for most hard drives, and if your hard drive overheats, you risk losing your data.

 

[een1bhs]

Hi, thats far to high a temperature, you are above the range that most drives consider normal operation! And for your drive specifically the stated upper limit is 60C.

Spike88's solution may work if the temp sensor is returning OK values (you could check this with smcFancControl, the temperature it reports is from the temperature sensor)

A more complete solution for you would be to use HDD Fan Control it will control the hard drive's fan speed in relation to the HDD Temperature as reported through its S.M.A.R.T interface. Its better than setting a static fan speed that does not protect you from overheating. (A issue for HDD's but no so much for SSD's).

Its not cheap, but is in active development and works with all HDD's and SSD's and has built in safety features.

You really do need to do something to increase the fans speed though, as that temperature is too high!

 

[karthi]

I just tested in 2TB i7 it is around 115F

I felt the mac seems to be running very hot, but checked with the infrared on the on the back side, it is around 46C, so not as hot as it felt like. Also how to run the temperature monitor, to find the internal hard disk temp.