Most of my hardware has arrived - recommended reading and best practices when building?

[joeschmuck]

Yes, they get hot, but was it too hot to hold? Or just actually really really warm ;)

While the temperature may be subjective, I have held some damn hot USB 3.0 flash drives. If they were designed properly to withstand the high temperatures then we would not be having this discussion. Some chips are designed properly such as a north bridge chip, some of those get so hot they will burn you (yes, I have brunt my finger a time or two), however they will keep working because they were designed to handle the high heat.

I have a 16GB Super Talent RAM Cache USB 3.0 Flash Drive. It's been plugged in constantly since April 2011 and my system remains powered on all the time and I backup all my financial and really important data twice a day to it. It's hot at 114.2F when idle and 114.9F when active. It is physically large and designed for the temperatures. When this finally fails, I'm going to cry.

 

[Ericloewe]

Yes, they get hot, but was it too hot to hold? Or just actually really really warm ;)

Not that warm, but definitely more than it had any right to be. I'd estimate it at ~34 degrees Celsius - but that's just the outside plastic.

Room temperature is hovering around the mid 20s these days.

 

[joeschmuck]

but that's just the outside plastic

That is a good point, and like mine it has a large metal case dissipating the heat as well.