Odd Baking Hardware

[ICTSM]

I was given a harddrive a few months back and I started to use it. It is a Maxtor 150Gig SATA drive.

 

I took the cover off my PC and discovered the HD was baking hot! On closer examination, there is an 'Apple' logo embossed on the casing...so it looks like this drive has come from a MAC.

 

Are there any differences between a MAC HD and a PC HD? Or do all SATA drives bake?

[Geoff]

They are all the same. There is precious little difference between mac hardware and pc hardware these days, short of how the boot process works. If you are worried about your hard drive temperatures you can get enclosures for them that add fans and other cooling elements. Additionally a hot HDD might be an early sign of a failing drive.

[gshaw]

I see the problem... Maxtor HD

 

Nightmare drives by all accounts... get yourself a nice Samsung instead

[Michael]

It's quite normal that hard drives can get very hot. A variety of factors such as how hot the machine runs, the number of read/write requests you make (light or intensive) and of course the rotational speed of the drive - 5400 to 15000rpm. Most workstation drives are either 5400 or 7200rpm.

[dtakias]

As michael said it's normal and varies depending the amount of usage and the rotational speed of the drive. Of course the mechanics and the architecture of the drive can be a significant factor.

 

For examble new hard drives can store a large amount of data on their platters therefore by reducing the numbers of platters you are reducing the temperature, the power needed to run and MTBF(life) of the drive. I think Samsung just released a 1TB drive that has only 2 platters, therefore it's able to store 500GB on each platter.

 

A nice actively cooled enclosure is the Antec MX-1. Its got a fairly big fan underneath and does USB2 and e-sata ports on the back.