Hard Drive Temperatures

I have two Western Digital Caviar 250G drives in my ATA100 bay and their temps stay close to that of the CPU, never over 110F/43C. However, my MDD is the SP version so may run cooler anyway.

Drives in the ATA100 bay get a direct flow from the main fan so adding a larger drive there may be a good idea if you are worried about heat. Obviously all efforts to evict dust bunnies and other hinderances to a strong airflow go a long way to better cooling. I noticed my MDD is getting dirty inside; Thanksgiving weekend is usually when I open up our Macs and get them a good mucking out.

no problems with your Caviars?

Installed them in April 07 so they haven't been there a really long time, but not a hint of trouble.

question on hard drive higher temperatures.
just installed another wd drive successfully in rear bay so 2 drives there 80gb and 160gb drives.
also have two smaller drives in the front bay.
i too am worried about the higher temperatures created with all these drives. i started using the freeware 'Temperature monitor' program and it does work showing temp of each drive and the CPU board. it doesn't tell you what the max temp that is allowable. What do you think the max temperatures can be (in centigrade)?? thanks again.

What do you think the max temperatures can be (in centigrade)?? thanks again.

Don't know; I suspect the WD website would be the place to start. With two drives in the back bay, my temps always show the drives within a few degrees of the processor and that relation hasn;t changed in nearly two years. The last drive I had in the front bay was too old to have a temp sensor.

Hi all,

I have three hard drives in my G4 MDD and my temperture monitors displays this:
CPU B: 136.7F,Drive2 100.4F, Drive3 122.0F. Two drives are in lower front bay and one in optical bay. I'm looking to add more drives in rear bay later on. Is this normal temperature readings? 136.7F seems hot for the CPU

I also noticed more air flow from rear of my G4 AGP than my G4 MDD. How is the air flow from a G4 MDD? I'm thinking of getting a PCI cooler fan. I was told the G4 MDD is meant to handle lots of drives, especially in rear with better venting.

Thanks
web dude

we've been doing an ongoing discussion with allen jones on this subject. I hope he sees this.
but I've got my drives and temp.monitor sensors figured out. your temps seem very high.
I have drives as follows: rear ibm 80gb max temp 99'F (orig drive)
rear wd 150gb max temp 95
front maxtor1 80gb max temp 80
front maxtor2 120gb max temp 92 cpu board 96'F. max.
the front bay may handle bigger drives better than the rear bay.
So your temps seem very high for the pmac g4(mdd). hope your fans are working properly.

One more note, these powermac g4's are great machines; had mine for 5yrs and still works great even with all the added drives and upgrades. since the next level mac pro costs over $2000, i may keep this device for a while longer, or as long as i can upgrade the OSX systems.

Hi

True, these G4s are good machines, I'll keep a close eye on the temps.
My G4 AGP hdd is currently at 109°F

Web dude

we still have some questions about how hot the drives can go; using 'temperature monitor' program.
size temp. bay
orig ibm 80gb 100* rear processor is only 87 degrees
maxtor 2 120gb 91* frt
maxtor 1 80gb 77* frt
wdigital 150gb 97* rear
notice that the rear bay stays hotter than the front bays.
do you think we are still in the okay range as far as max temps are concerned??

we still have some questions about how hot the drives can go;

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the only reliable way to tell you how much heat a drive can tolerate is to consult the manufacturer's web sites and look up the specs. It's probably a bit different for each maker.

All any of us here can do is report what we see but, inless one of us wrks for a drive manufacturer, any info on temperature tolerance is a guess.

Great thread! I remember having the Chud tools on my server (dunno what version) but got rid of it because it didn't really worked for me. That was probably because I didn't know about the script at the time. I've just installed 3.5.2 on my 10.3.9 server. Can someone help me with a complete start-up script? I'm not that good in AppleScript. Thanx in advance.


And something else I want to know, is there anyone who can confirm it's still working under 10.5 server? Or is this functionality already build into 10.5? Because I'd like to upgrade in the next coming weeks/months.

Ooops sorry! Responded to the wrong thread.

Hey Allen

The ATA100 bays are on the back part of the MDD Macs? I'm planning on adding two 500GB drives in these bays and I was concerned of temperture issues. I currently have a 200GB drive and a 120GB drive in the front bays and noticed once in a while my MDD would shut down without warning. I installed temp monitor and it reads about 110 or lower. What can it be?

Thanks

Web dude

Hi Bigstran

On a MDD machine, can I install two 500GB IDE ATA/66 drives? I was not sure if only the rear bays handle 500GB drives or bigger.

Thanks
Web dude