[das]

I have several Power Mac G5s, some with the 80GB drive, some with the 160GB drive, and a couple with two 160GB drives (all Seagate so far, as far as I have seen).

On the machines with the two 160GB drives, after they've been on for long enough to warm up (longer than a half hour or so), the drives seem extremely hot...hot enough to the point where it's uncomfortable to touch them, and definitely hotter than something I'd consider acceptable for drives based on my experiences. The fans in the top drive bay are indeed spinning, but they never seem to spin up beyond their standard low RPM.

Is anyone else experiencing this? To explain exactly what I'm doing, I'm touching the end of the drive itself; the metal enclosure on the end where the cables connect. On a single drive system, you can also kind of feel under the drive too, but the single drive systems don't feel *quite* as warm. On the dual drive systems, all you can really feel is the exposed end of the drive, and that's the part that feels really hot.

More info: just out of curiosity, I pulled the plastic shield out since it causes the fans in the drive bay to throttle up to maximum. With the fans in the drive bay running at max for a little while, not more than 5 minutes, the drives feel just a little warm to the touch; something I would consider an acceptable temperature (but obviously I don't want to run with the clear plastic shield out or with the drive bay fans at high for a variety of reasons - I just did this because I knew the drive fans would throttle up and wanted to see what the effect was). When I put the shield back in, the drives become very hot again in after a short while of running. Whether the main metal side door is on or off has no discernible effect.

I'm not normally a person to care about the little things, or to be overly concerned about issues when they arise. Broken PowerBook hinge? Who cares! G4 noise? Speak up, I can't hear you! Maxtor "Beep of Death"? I needed a bigger drive anyway! But in this case, these drives seem *extremely* hot.

So, would anyone with 160GB (or larger) drive(s) mind feeling the drive and seeing how hot it is? I know it's quite subjective, but let's just say this is hot enough to make you think "whoa, should it really be that hot?" and it's definitely not just "really warm". Either that is within tolerances for this drive, or something is not right. The drive bay fans never seem to throttle up no matter how hot the drives get.

I'd be interested to see what people find, especially if there's any difference with 1 drive vs. 2.

Dave Schroeder
[email protected]

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Read here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=180866

[intaglio]

I have a G5 with a stock 160GB SATA drive in the upper bay and it is reasonably hot to the touch like you said.

I have installed a 36GB Western Digital RAPTOR 10K RPM drive in the lower bay and it is definitely running hotter than the stock drive.

So, yes, these drives seem to be running hotter that what I would have expected, but I have no prior experience with SATA drives.

I have two 15K RPM SCSI Cheetah drives in my old mac that run very cool and quiet.

[yukon]

strange, a problem like that should have been caught by apple. inadequately cooling a drive will result in a much shorter lifespan, you could lose data. if drives start failing, apple could be in trouble

i'd suggest adding a heatsink of some sort over it, or even a 80mm PC casefan if you can. a standard casefan can be speed controlled with a very simple modification (rheostat), check 7volts.com. or, much more simply, expect less life from your drives, and make sure you're backed up properly.

i have no experiance with the G5. best of luck.

[Hydra]

I've noticed on my dual G5 that by allowing drives to sleep in the energy saver control panel the drive bay are seems to run much cooler.

-Jerry C.

[das]

A followup on this.

I used an infrared noncontact thermometer to measure the temperature of the drives. After being on for a while (but not in active use), the lower drive was 128�F (53�C), and the upper drive was 132�F (56�C).

This is definitely hot to the touch.

However, Seagate's ST3160023AS product manual indicates a maximum drive case operating temperature of 156�F (69�C) and a maximum ambient direct air temperature of 140�F (60�C).

So, the two 160 GB drives and the operating environment within the case seem to be within the manufacturer's specifications. Calls to Apple and Seagate didn't elicit any concern.

Still, higher temperature than necessary will likely reduce the operating life of the drives. I used an 80x80x25mm case fan (from StarTech.com) with a 4-pin power passthru to provide extra cooling. The fan wedges perfectly in at the ends of the drives where the cables attach, and power is extracted from the power connection for the optical drive via the power passthru. I have oriented the fan to blow air onto the drives (vs away from). After a few minutes, the temperature on both drives read a much more comfortable 90�F (32�C), and has stayed consistently around this temperature.

This configuration may not work well with the side metal case door on, since there would be nowhere for the fan to draw air; however, since the rest of the innards are segregated by the clear plastic door, it's functionally safe to run with the metal door off (frankly, I wanted to run with the door off anyway).

Just an FYI to those interested...

Dave
[email protected]