HDD Airflow Temperature Threshold Reached

[kyrcy]

Does anyone know if the above warning in S.M.A.R.T values is a valid reason to ask for a HDD replacement? The HDD is in an external enclosure and less than one year old. HD Tune suggests replacing the drive, but not CrystalDiskInfo, HDDScan or SeaTools.

[ranchhand]

Maybe overheating? I once had an external that would overheat after 10 minutes of continuous use and crash. The drive was good for short bursts of saving files, but no extended usage. Might be your problem.

[Des]

Sounds like an air flow issue to me.
You can try putting one of those laptop coolers under it, or fashion some type of 'legs' to raise it up so it gets a clear flow of air on all sides and see if this remedies it.
Alternatively...if you can open the enclosure it's in you can run it open a bit and if that solves the problem put it into a different enclosure.

--dES

[TimA-C]

Does the enclosure have a cooling fan? If so is it still working?

If it doesn't have a fan, is the enclosure metal or plastic? If plastic then it's probably a cheap & nasty one which quite likely is overheating and I'd replace the enclosure asap. If it's a metal enclosure, have you got it sitting horizontally or vertically? If horizontal then try it vertical as you'll probably get better convection cooling - like with the Netgear routers.

[roma_turok]

What values HD Tune report?

[themaster1]

let me guess, it's a seagate barracuda drive (the old model) right/wrong ?

[nic2k4]

You can't just ask for a replacement drive. All manufacturers require you to supply a fault code as part of the RMA process; the only way to get that code is to run their diagnostic utility (Seatools). The utility can fix a number of problems; it will only give a fault code for what it can't fix.

One program telling you the drive exceeded a temperature threshold is not an indication the drive is dying. The age of the drive is as important as it's operating temprature in deciding whether it should be replaced. Check this site for a really good rundown on the subject.

[kyrcy]

What values HD Tune report?

(BE) Airflow Temperature

(Current) 63 (Worst) 40 (Threshold) 45 (Status) failed

let me guess, it's a seagate barracuda drive (the old model) right/wrong ?

ST3000DM001

[fritzi93]

I have two of those exact model drives.

One shows values of 59/56/45, the other shows 59/57/45. Both mounted internally, and one of which came in a Seagate enclosure (cheaper that way than a bare drive). Which, I have to say, is not the best enclosure I've seen.

I'm curious what themaster1 has to say about those drives.

[kyrcy]

http://www.verbatim.com/prod/hard-drives/desktop/store-n-save-usb-3.0-sku-97581/

The enclosure was in the vertical position when the HDD reached the maximum temperature, but I think this shouldn't matter.

[hello_hello]

You can't just ask for a replacement drive. All manufacturers require you to supply a fault code as part of the RMA process; the only way to get that code is to run their diagnostic utility (Seatools). The utility can fix a number of problems; it will only give a fault code for what it can't fix.

There's a workaround for that..... at least for Seagate drives. One of the available fault codes is effectively "Seatools can't access the drive due to a RAID configuration".... or something along those lines. I use that one.
I refuse to run the diagnostic utilities because I know when a drive is faulty and when it isn't, and I've had dignostic utilities tell me there's nothing wrong with a drive in the past while it's making all sorts of odd noises and running at a snail's pace.

[themaster1]

read this kyrcy:
http://arewold.wordpress.com/2007/08/27/having-problems-with-the-seagate-freeagent-500...al-disk-drive/

[fritzi93]

So, odds are it's just the crummy enclosure, as others have suggested.

I wasn't able to find any known issues with the drive itself, although I didn't do an exhaustive search. Negative reviews seem to be the usual mix. There are the idiots dropping a new AFD (Advanced Format Drive) into a 10 year old machine and expecting it to work without issue as-is. Or DOA drives due to shipping damage. Then there's the unknown proportion of outright defective drives. Nothing out of the ordinary that I can see.

[redwudz]

If you have the drive hooked up as a USB 3.0 device, then it would be able to pass much more data and would likely run hotter. I have a couple of 2GB WD USB 2.0 drives without any ventilation slots or fans and they run surprising cool. And I have used them for HD MKV playback, so they do get a bit of a workout. They are also 'Green' drives, so they spin at 5400 RPM and that reduces power consumption and heat.

That Seagate ST3000DM001 is a 7200RPM HDD, which tend to run hotter. Maybe not a good choice for a fanless enclosure.

I like to see HDD temps in the 30C - 35C range. But up to 45C should be OK, but not desirable. The max operating temperature listed by Seagate is 60C. I would also wonder how your temps are being measured. At 45C the enclosure should be quite hot to the touch.

[kyrcy]

I monitored the HDD temperature for about 2 hours and even at idle it increased from approximately 29 C to 49 C. At this temperature the enclosure was not particularly hot to touch. I have now connected the enclosure to a USB 2.0 port to check if it makes any difference from a USB 3.0 port.

[nic2k4]

There's a workaround for that..... at least for Seagate drives. One of the available fault codes is effectively "Seatools can't access the drive due to a RAID configuration".... or something along those lines. I use that one.
I refuse to run the diagnostic utilities because I know when a drive is faulty and when it isn't, and I've had dignostic utilities tell me there's nothing wrong with a drive in the past while it's making all sorts of odd noises and running at a snail's pace.

I don't know when you last sent for RMA at Seagate, but have a look at the latest return policy (last paragraph). If they test a drive and it doesn't show the fault you're claiming you may be out a drive. The diagnostic utility won't find anything wrong with a drive when the problem is with the cable or M/B; all it does is send a command to the drive onboard controller and wait for the reply.

I've had a drive (Seagate) that made an horrible noise after operating for a while, the spindle bearing was bad. It would cause sectors to be marked as bad, running Seatools would move the data to a spare sector and report the drive to be good. Eventually, the drive ran out of spare sectors and I got a fault code. BTW, check out the warranty void checklist, I especially like the one where the cover serial# doesn't match the case.

I'd say Western Digital makes the better quality drives these days. Ever since Seagate bought back their shares and went private again, their products have been below par. Just think of the famous 7200.11 firmware problem, the worst part is a similar problem happened with the 7200.12 series.

[aedipuss]

the last time i rma'd a hard drive they wouldn't take it back without an error code number from their software.

[kyrcy]

In 40 minutes the HDD temperature increased approximately 10 degrees so I guess it's not a USB 3.0 port issue either.

[hello_hello]

I don't know when you last sent for RMA at Seagate, but have a look at the latest return policy (last paragraph). If they test a drive and it doesn't show the fault you're claiming you may be out a drive. The diagnostic utility won't find anything wrong with a drive when the problem is with the cable or M/B; all it does is send a command to the drive onboard controller and wait for the reply.

I bought a couple of 7200.11, 500GB drives.... close to six years ago, I guess. I returned each under warranty (5 years at the time) at least twice. It could have been three times each, I can't remember. By the end I was pretty over it. One drive sat dead in a draw for over a year and the second one joined it for a while, until I realised the warranty was about to expire. If I was more efficient myself I probably could've had them replaced with faulty drives a couple more times.

So far, the final replacements are still working. I still don't trust them with anything important, but one lives in a USB dock connected to a TV and it's usually running several hours per day. The other doesn't get used much. At the moment it's my "pseudo" portable drive.

Anyway, I never ran SeaTools once. I just used the "couldn't run Seatools" RMA number Seagate supply when filling out their RMA form. They were faulty and/or dead and I wasn't interested in arguing about it with software.
It might be different according to where you live, but I'm in Australia. The system is to fill out Seagate's RMA form and return the drives to their agent in Sydney, who then ship you the replacements. I'll at least give them one thing, their return process is fairly efficient. Each time I sent off the faulty drives the replacements arrived within a few days. I seriously doubt they could have checked the returned drives before sending me the replacements. I'd suspect no matter where you live the system would be the same. They probably keep a stock of refurbished drives ready to go, and the returned drives probably go into a pool to be refurbished. If they physically checked each returned drive before sending out a replacement it'd probably too inefficient. Which is probably why they push using Seatools pretty hard before returning drives. It'd cut down on the number of healthy drives being returned.

[Syst3mSh0ck]

I second hello_hello's advice, Seagate are pretty unreliable, not as bad as Hitachi DeskShit's though lol. Western Digital all the way for me, never had a single problem in over 15 years. As far as the SMART readings are concerned, don't worry about it? My drive runs hot and has done for years, it's not had any impact on reliability or integrity.

[themaster1]

Western digital for me (green,blue, black whatever) aswell but i know Seagate bought Samsung 2 years ago here and samsung spinpoint's hdd's were the best really as far as reliability.

Except for the excessive heat/noise the 2 seagate barracuda i own worked ok once out of the original enclosure connected in sata or usb

[kyrcy]

Any ideas how to open the above enclosure without breaking it?

[fritzi93]

I was able to find a couple YouTube videos showing how to open the Seagate enclosure without destroying it. But it seems you have a Seagate drive in a Verbatim marketed enclosure, going by your link. Seems to me to be a different enclosure.

I found a tutorial. Does this look like it will do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUackB29YEM

[kyrcy]

I was able to find a couple YouTube videos showing how to open the Seagate enclosure without destroying it. But it seems you have a Seagate drive in a Verbatim marketed enclosure, going by your link. Seems to me to be a different enclosure.

I found a tutorial. Does this look like it will do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUackB29YEM

No, that is a different enclosure, so I need the one in the link above. If I break the enclosure warranty will be void. Is there a chance that the problem is the HDD inside? Are there any power saving settings that might be causing the problem?

[nic2k4]

In 40 minutes the HDD temperature increased approximately 10 degrees so I guess it's not a USB 3.0 port issue either.

As was mentioned before 7200 RPM drives run hot, period. The USB port has no impact on temperature, but the SATA-USB bridge does (that's the controller in the box). If it doesn't have a power saving mode the drive will always be spinning and the temperature will always be high. You can quickly check that by going to power option in control panel and set the hard drive to turn off in 1 minute, apply it and wait a minute without doing anything. If the drive doesn't spin down the only thing you can do to keep it from getting too hot is to unplug it when you don't need to use it. Of course, you can get a better quality enclosure, something all metal that has power saving; Vantec makes nice enclosures.

Eh hello_hello, the last drive I sent in was a 500GB 7200.11, I guess I was lucky they sent back a 7200.12.

[themaster1]

a usb docking station works ok for me

[hello_hello]

Eh hello_hello, the last drive I sent in was a 500GB 7200.11, I guess I was lucky they sent back a 7200.12.

No such luck for me. I never thought to check so I just had a look, and both the final replacement drives are 7200.11

a usb docking station works ok for me

Me too. I have a few of them and a bunch of "internal" drives I use with them. USB3 is the way to go. USB2 is way too slow, and I find USB3 to be a bit more reliable than SATA (I think sometimes the motherboard and dock SATA controllers don't play together as nicely as they should).

The WD Green drives are my favourites for using with USB docks as they're quiet and they run cool, although sitting in a USB dock exposed to the air keeps them all cool enough.
The loudest and hottest drive I own is a 2TB Hitachi 7200rpm drive. It's one of the original (non-AFD) 2TB models. It sits on the floor behind whichever computer it's hooked up to so as to keep the USB docks free (eSATA to SATA cable). I just had a look and it's running at 39 degrees at the moment, but it's a cool Winter's day. In summer it'll run at close to 50 degrees, or sometimes a bit more. It's been doing that pretty much 24/7 for over two years, probably close to three.

[kyrcy]

I think the problem is similar with the problems described below:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2284850

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1921999

Should I break the enclosure (I did not find a way to open it) to install the hdd internally (or in a better enclosure) or use it as little as possible (it was bought for backup purposes anyway) until the end of its warranty (I checked the invoice again and I verified that it was purchased only 6 months ago).

[fritzi93]

I have to think you didn't look carefully enough, or you're being ultra cautious.

Since you say it's not the Verbatim enclosure I linked earlier, maybe it's the Seagate Backup Plus enclosure? You haven't been very helpful with details. A photo would have allowed positive identification.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDp9sC3TT0s

I removed mine with no damage to the enclosure following the above video. Rather than throw away the enclosure, I stuck an old smallish 5400 rpm drive in there and use it occasionally for OS drive disc images.

Good luck.

[kyrcy]

The Verbatim enclosure is the one in the link I posted above.

Here is the link again:

http://www.verbatim.com/prod/hard-drives/desktop/store-n-save-usb-3.0-sku-97581/

It's different from the Seagate enclosures.