Do fans extend HDD life?

I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life? And by how much?

"Peter Jason" wrote in message
...

I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life? And by how much?

Depends on the environment they are in and how much they are accessed.
Typical consumer hard drive should be under 122° (50°C) You can use the
free version of Speccy from Piriform.com or some other tool of your choice
to verify the drives temperature.

The manufacturer will have the data you're looking for in the specs for each
model. Seagate Barracuda 3TB spec shows 144° (60°C as max).

http://www.seagate.com/www-content/p...0-5-1702us.pdf

Keeping electronics cool does extend their lifespan but I can't say for how
long. I have hard drives in my systems that are 6 years old and still work
without any errors. But everything in my office is on UPS, in an
environmentally controlled room and anywhere from 4 to six fans in each
cabinet.



Bob S.

On 06/05/2017 04:02 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life?

Yes

And by how much?

I can't say


Hi Peter,

All electronic and mechanical devices are degrade
by heat on an exponential manner (not a linear manner).
So if you can blow air across it, do so.

I did failure analysis for the military. Heat
was by far the worst factor in component failure.

-T

On 6/5/2017 6:18 PM, T wrote:
On 06/05/2017 04:02 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life?

Yes

And by how much?

I can't say


Hi Peter,

All electronic and mechanical devices are degrade
by heat on an exponential manner (not a linear manner).
So if you can blow air across it, do so.

I did failure analysis for the military. Heat
was by far the worst factor in component failure.

-T

We used to say that reliability decreases by half for
every 10C increase in temperature.
Is that still a valid rule of thumb?

On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 00:32:49 -0700, mike wrote:

We used to say that reliability decreases by half for every 10C increase
in temperature.
Is that still a valid rule of thumb?

Was it ever? Just because you used to say that? I used to say you were a
stupid Linux Group troll, good for harvesting body parts.

On 06/06/2017 12:32 AM, mike wrote:
On 6/5/2017 6:18 PM, T wrote:
On 06/05/2017 04:02 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life?

Yes

And by how much?

I can't say


Hi Peter,

All electronic and mechanical devices are degrade
by heat on an exponential manner (not a linear manner).
So if you can blow air across it, do so.

I did failure analysis for the military. Heat
was by far the worst factor in component failure.

-T

We used to say that reliability decreases by half for
every 10C increase in temperature.
Is that still a valid rule of thumb?

Hi Mike,

I don't remember the charts, but your rule of thumb
sounds about right.

I adore this adapter for mounting 2.5" drives
in 3.5 inch slots:

P3525HDDASSYKIT In-Win 3.5" to 2.5" HD Bracket with fan
Toss the crappy fan and replace it with a

fan-967 Cooljag Everflow 60mm x 10mm Dual Ball Bearing
PWM Fan (R126010BUAF)

-T

On 06/06/2017 12:59 AM, Bad Guy wrote:
On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 00:32:49 -0700, mike wrote:

We used to say that reliability decreases by half for every 10C increase
in temperature.
Is that still a valid rule of thumb?

Was it ever? Just because you used to say that? I used to say you were a
stupid Linux Group troll, good for harvesting body parts.


Hi Guy,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person
who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or
upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous,
or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a
newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent
of provoking readers into an emotional response or
of otherwise disrupting normal, on-topic discussion,
often for the troll's amusement.

This sort of sounds like what you posted, not what Mine posted.

-T

mike wrote:
On 6/5/2017 6:18 PM, T wrote:
On 06/05/2017 04:02 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life?

Yes

And by how much?

I can't say


Hi Peter,

All electronic and mechanical devices are degrade
by heat on an exponential manner (not a linear manner).
So if you can blow air across it, do so.

I did failure analysis for the military. Heat
was by far the worst factor in component failure.

-T

We used to say that reliability decreases by half for
every 10C increase in temperature.
Is that still a valid rule of thumb?

That's the Arrhenius equation, originally from your
Chemistry department.

The way Arrhenius works in electronics, is it is "curve fitted"
as part of reliability modeling.

It turns out, that the electronics version of Arrhenius, doesn't
exactly follow the 7C/10F doubling rule. Some capacitors
for example, might double for every 15C. So what you do is,
you invent a new electrolytic capacitor, put a few thousand
in an oven, make the reliability measurements, then draw
the best curve through the data points, and you get the
doubling factor. Then you write an application note,
describing the "slope" of your curve, which helps when
engineers need to select reliable-enough capacitors.
So if a capacitor is a 2000 hour type at 105C, it
will be a 4000 hour type at 90C. Or an 8000 hour
item at 75C. Well, on a hot day, your PC is only
45C inside (and that's the spec printed in the product
brochure, 45C). (Yes, better quality PCs can take
higher temperatures than that.)

I was kinda surprised that the electronics components
didn't follow the chemistry equation more closely. I gather
from a modeling perspective, they're just happy if a behavior
has a model type, like "exponential", so that they can fit
a curve and publish the factors for that curve.

So if you designed a motherboard with both electrolytic
and Polymer caps on it, you'd probably need two different
equations for reliability purposes. As the chemistry and
failure mechanisms would be different.

Paul

On Mon, 5 Jun 2017 21:04:57 -0400, "B" wrote:

"Peter Jason" wrote in message
.. .

I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life? And by how much?

Technically, it probably does, but probably not in any noticable way.
Certainly not unless your hard-drive is operating at very high
temperatures, in which case the fan probably wouldn't be sufficient to
cool it anyway.

Google - which uses tens of thousands of hard-drives for its servers
and cloud-services - collected data on its hardware and released a
study with the results.
http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/go...re-experience/

One of the interesting things in the study was that heat was not a
significant factor in causing a hard-drive to fail.

It is far more likely that your hard-drive will fail because of other
reasons long before any heat-releated damage causes the drive to stop
working.

Anecdotally, I find that on machines where I used hard-drive cooler
fans, the drives tended to have more problems. Unless your drives are
running hot to the touch all the time due to constant use, it's
probably not worth the expense or electricity.

On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 03:32:44 -0700, T wrote:

On 06/06/2017 12:59 AM, Bad Guy wrote:
On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 00:32:49 -0700, mike wrote:

We used to say that reliability decreases by half for every 10C
increase in temperature.
Is that still a valid rule of thumb?

Was it ever? Just because you used to say that? I used to say you were
a stupid Linux Group troll, good for harvesting body parts.


Hi Guy,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who
sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting
people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous,
or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup,
forum, chat room, or blog) with the intent of provoking readers
into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal,
on-topic discussion,
often for the troll's amusement.

This sort of sounds like what you posted, not what Mine posted.

Well, yeah! That's the reason I'm here pestering the troll "Good
Guy" (long with the rest of the group).
You ever look at which groups that dick "Good Guy"'s posts have been
posted to?
Someone here posts a question, HERE, about windows 10, then "Good Guy"
steps in and adds a couple linux groups to crosspost his Windows 10
Advocacy to. Every time.
Had enough of that, **** that ****bag "Good Guy".

Lowercase "mike" was another Windroid trolling the linux groups, but mike
seems to have outgrown that.


-T

On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 07:20:59 -0400, Paul
wrote:

mike wrote:
On 6/5/2017 6:18 PM, T wrote:
On 06/05/2017 04:02 PM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have Seagates 500GB to 3TB in bays on my computer that is left on
all the time.

They get a steady constant air flow via fans, and the drives are cool
to the touch.

Does this extend the HDD life?

Yes

And by how much?

I can't say


Hi Peter,

All electronic and mechanical devices are degrade
by heat on an exponential manner (not a linear manner).
So if you can blow air across it, do so.

I did failure analysis for the military. Heat
was by far the worst factor in component failure.

-T

We used to say that reliability decreases by half for
every 10C increase in temperature.
Is that still a valid rule of thumb?

That's the Arrhenius equation, originally from your
Chemistry department.

The way Arrhenius works in electronics, is it is "curve fitted"
as part of reliability modeling.

It turns out, that the electronics version of Arrhenius, doesn't
exactly follow the 7C/10F doubling rule. Some capacitors
for example, might double for every 15C. So what you do is,
you invent a new electrolytic capacitor, put a few thousand
in an oven, make the reliability measurements, then draw
the best curve through the data points, and you get the
doubling factor. Then you write an application note,
describing the "slope" of your curve, which helps when
engineers need to select reliable-enough capacitors.
So if a capacitor is a 2000 hour type at 105C, it
will be a 4000 hour type at 90C. Or an 8000 hour
item at 75C. Well, on a hot day, your PC is only
45C inside (and that's the spec printed in the product
brochure, 45C). (Yes, better quality PCs can take
higher temperatures than that.)

I was kinda surprised that the electronics components
didn't follow the chemistry equation more closely. I gather
from a modeling perspective, they're just happy if a behavior
has a model type, like "exponential", so that they can fit
a curve and publish the factors for that curve.

So if you designed a motherboard with both electrolytic
and Polymer caps on it, you'd probably need two different
equations for reliability purposes. As the chemistry and
failure mechanisms would be different.

Paul


Thanks to all.

Anyway, since my CCTV HDD (4TB) died recently and a new one installed
under warranty, I've drilled a 3" hole in the casing & siliconed a fan
on the top to blow air into that casing. Just insurance.

On 6/6/2017 7:42 AM, Bad Guy wrote:


Lowercase "mike" was another Windroid trolling the linux groups, but mike
seems to have outgrown that.


-T

mike was exposing the disconnection between desktop linux and the way
the real world works on the desktop of joe average and presenting
SOLUTIONS using logic (instead of denigration).
That hasn't changed.
Would be really useful to have an alternative to windows 10
on the desktop. Linux REFUSES to be that alternative, by design,
by intent, by philosophy...with prejudice! Viva CHAOS!

On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 15:55:37 -0700, mike wrote:

On 6/6/2017 7:42 AM, Bad Guy wrote:

Lowercase "mike" was another Windroid trolling the linux groups, but
mike seems to have outgrown that.

mike was exposing the disconnection between desktop linux and the way
the real world works on the desktop of joe average and presenting
SOLUTIONS using logic (instead of denigration).

Well, I guess Linux users aren't Joe Average. Does everything, and
everyone using everything, have to be average for you? You be average.
Have fun, average mike.

That hasn't changed.
Would be really useful to have an alternative to windows 10 on the
desktop.

Why would it be really useful to have alternatives for Joe Average?

Linux REFUSES to be that alternative, by design,
by intent, by philosophy...with prejudice! Viva CHAOS!

1000 distros aren't resulting in any chaos for me. I looked at a half-
dozen, picked the one I liked, and then I recovered from the trauma.

On Wed, 07 Jun 2017 07:48:25 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

Anyway, since my CCTV HDD (4TB) died recently and a new one installed
under warranty, I've drilled a 3" hole in the casing & siliconed a fan
on the top to blow air into that casing. Just insurance.

I'd turn the fan around to suck the hot air out. Hot air rises so it
would want to go out of the top anyway. You are just blowing a column
of cold air into the case and, unless you have temperature sensors all
over the place, no idea where it's going. You need to make sure you
have a vent that allows air to come in and flow over the drive on it's
way to the fan.

If you can drill a 3" hole can't you also drill 4 small holes for those
things called screws to hold the fan in place :-))

--
Faster, cheaper, quieter than HS2
and built in 5 years;
UKUltraspeed http://www.500kmh.com/

On Wed, 07 Jun 2017 06:39:00 +0100, Rodney Pont wrote:
On Wed, 07 Jun 2017 07:48:25 +1000, Peter Jason wrote:

I've drilled a 3" hole in the casing & siliconed a fan
on the top to blow air into that casing. Just insurance.


If you can drill a 3" hole can't you also drill 4 small holes for those
things called screws to hold the fan in place :-))

No, picture what he described - the fan is glued to the *outside* of the
case.