Is it Normal for a Mechanical Hard drive to be Hot in an External Open Air Drive Dock?

[bikeman25]

Hello All

Nothing is being read or written to the Drive,   Windows says in use and wont allow safe eject.   Last night i waited til almost bed time, then finally got Windows to allow ejection lol, and well it was so hot to the touch lol.         The Drive in Question is Western Digital Black 4TB,  plugged into StarTech Open AIr Drive Dock til i can get an enclosure with a Fan that hopefully keeps it cooler when at times i use it

 

Welcome any suggestions or advice or if it's perfectly normal

 

[adrynalyne]

Yes it’s normal. The only time it won’t be warm/hot is if it’s not spinning. 

[bikeman25]

Oh ok, just wanted to check to make sure it wasn't nothing abnormal 

 

[bikeman25]

Ok will get a fan running against it asap!    i don't plan on having that drive in the Hard Drive Dock maybe once or twice   a month to update files on it.     

Previously in old system it was internal,  but i heard having a Mechanical drive Internal slows the machine down,  so this time with this Desktop build sticking to All Internal SSDs,  eventually 2 M.2, and perhaps leaving the 1 Sata 1TB Drive for a little extra storage.       

 

Hope to install the 2nd M.2 in early August and redo Windows 11 Install to Windows 11 Pro at that time as well is tentative plan

 

 

[adrynalyne]

On 29/07/2024 at 10:20, bikeman25 said:

Ok will get a fan running against it asap!    i don't plan on having that drive in the Hard Drive Dock maybe once or twice   a month to update files on it.     

Previously in old system it was internal,  but i heard having a Mechanical drive Internal slows the machine down,  so this time with this Desktop build sticking to All Internal SSDs,  eventually 2 M.2, and perhaps leaving the 1 Sata 1TB Drive for a little extra storage.       

 

Hope to install the 2nd M.2 in early August and redo Windows 11 Install to Windows 11 Pro at that time as well is tentative plan

 

 

I wouldn't worry about it too much if its open-air and your ambient temperature is low enough.

You can check the manufacturer specs and an app like Crystal Disk Info to read your temperatures to be safe.

[bikeman25]

Yes i did open Crystal Disk info, and Temp showed 47C for the Drive, but no warnings in Crystal Disk info at all

Ambient temp is as low as i can get it, and do have a floor fan on nearly 24/7, as A/C doesn't exactly cool the upstairs that well in Townhome, so doing my very very best to keep room as cool as i can, as i don't want any drive to over heat or Desktop PC itself

so can't wait for cooler fall weather & Winter lol...then i won't have to worry on temps at least til maybe March, April or May 2025 lol that much lol.

((Yes big Temp worrier lol))

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

47C is a little high, but I wouldn't worry about it. HDDs are meant to be hot, as they have moving parts.

[bikeman25]

Yeah i sometimes get overly worried for nothing,  heck the drive dock is open air, not enclosed enclosure like other externals lol.        Just sorta paniced when i took it outta there and put it back in a safe spot lol--i was like wow this is hot lol.     either i keep way too many files LOL

 

Externals have currently lol

WD Elements Desktop 500GB (2003)

WD My Passport Blue (2017) 

WD My Passport Red 2TB both--(2019)

WD My Book 8TB (Primary Backup Drive, Christmas 2023) 

WD Black 1TB In Another Enclosure purchased 2018 lol, used til 2019 When i won Seagate Twitter Contest for 8TB Seagate Barracuda drive lol (was primary backup drive til 2023, maybe i should kept the 1TB internal, and not even bought the 4TB Christmas 2018 lol, but is what it is lol 

Seagate 1TB Portable External

 

((Maybe i do keep way too many files lmao---virus scan and malwarebytes scans take ages with them all connected at times lol))

pack rat i guess i am lol

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

If these are storage drives, why do you need to run malwarebytes? You know what's going on them, right?

[bikeman25]

Well maybe I go overboard on checking things lol.  Yes I know what's going on each drive 

 

[+Batfink Subscriber²]

Personally I would have a look at rationalising your storage with that many external mechanical drives.  If you are using all that space now may be the time to start to think of moving to a proper dedicated and expandable NAS solution like Synology or QNAP.

You can use existing drives in those if you wanted to (although I tend to use NAS Drives such as the WD Red series).  The advantage would be redundancy if a drive were to fail which you don't have with all those external drives (unless you spend time making backups to multiple drives!).

Plus you can leave the virus scanning to the NAS... Synology has an anti-virus scanner (based on Clam-AV) which you can customise to run (as I do) and you open up possibilities such as a PLEX Server, Home Assistant / HomeBridge server, file sharing across PC's... I use download station to manage all my BitTorrent (Linux distro's!) sessions, etc.

As an aside. having a mechanical drive inside your PC for long term storage (As opposed to regular access such as a boot drive or a dedicated game SSD/NVME) does not slow down the overall system.   You could safely put that 8GB WD Black drive into the PC (ideally next to a fan inlet) and it would not impact on performance at all.

[bikeman25]

Yes right  now I spend time making backups to the multiple drives weekly.   Sometimes I Dj in Secondlife with Virtual Dj program,  music files always changing with newer songs bought typically with MS Bing Reward gift cards from Amazon. 

Have some very old VHS older tv show conversions stored on all of the externals.  

Still need to finish making family photo album all digital whenever I get time for that lol

Back in 2005 I idiotic infected my own system and back then lost a ton of files due to my own stupidity,  was Testing Windows Live OneCare, listened to so called friend in another online game, infected system so bad..previous pc shop was eventually like to fix this have to replace all hardware.  

Been obsessed with making sure backups done since lol

Think will look into Getting a Nas, WD Red drives and finding spot to put said NAS device, might even look into 2.5Gig ethernet switch as Nas is gonna need probably a spot to plug into network.   Guess would have to be put somewhere in my room  near 50 ft main ethernet wire

 

[Arceles]

I would say to go to xigmanas or freenas apprach, you can do so much and it is not too difficult to configure.