Quote:
Originally Posted by morts
Disks CAN fail through overheating because the processor on the chip will start throwing errors, much like your CPU will when it overheats, leading to bad sectors. It can also cause internal components to expand beyond their operating tolerance, leading to malfunctions.
That said, drives will happily run at 70 - 80 degrees without too much complaint.
|
This is especially important to remember for external hard drives. Poorly designed drives that are running all the time can overheat quickly, dramatically reducing their lifespan. Manufacturers won't replace a drive that is damaged due to overheating, so if you install the drive in an external enclosure, make sure it isn't getting too hot.
For external hard drives I typically keep them off and unplugged, from anything, until I need to power them up for backup or restore.