Silverstone DS380 and HGST 6tb temperautre

[PhilZJ81]

I realize this is hardware related, but I was wondering if any of you run a similar setup as mine.
Case: Silverstone DS380
HDD: 4x HGST 6TB NAS drives (2 more on the way.)
Drives will be in the lower 6 slots of the 8 bay array. They will be a RaidZ2 array when the 2 extra drives arrive. I plan on putting a 7th 6TB drive in there that will be on it's own, for file swapping and putting none precious data there.

The problem I'm having is hard drive temperatures.
All the fans are spinning, the ones blowing on the hard drives seem to be doing well.

However, within 10-15 minutes of booting, my hard drives are in the high 40C to low 50C range, and that's without a load.

CPU on the other hand is sitting at 32C

Issue is, the way the case is designed, i don't think I can get more fans in there to cool the drives...

I'd welcome any advice.
Thanks,
-Phil

 

[SweetAndLow]

What fans and are they running at full speed.

Also that just looks like a terrible case for hdd's, there is zero fans for the hdd's.

You need to get some fans and mount then in front or just behind the driver's before the motherboard.

You could also get some high flow fans to put on the left side where that grill is.

 

[INCSlayer]

What fans and are they running at full speed.

Also that just looks like a terrible case for hdd's, there is zero fans for the hdd's.

You need to get some fans and mount then in front or just behind the driver's before the motherboard.

You could also get some high flow fans to put on the left side where that grill is.

maybe you should actually look up the case before you complain about it? it has 2x120mm fans on the side of the HDD cage that blows onto the HDDs. And quite a few people here on the forums use it and if it was "a terrible case for hdd's" i think that there would have been more chatter about it

to OP this thread suggest using a piece of cardboard to better focus the air to help lower the HDD temps

 

[PhilZJ81]

What fans and are they running at full speed.

Also that just looks like a terrible case for hdd's, there is zero fans for the hdd's.

You need to get some fans and mount then in front or just behind the driver's before the motherboard.

You could also get some high flow fans to put on the left side where that grill is.

If I remember bios correctly, fans were going 1000-1200 rpm range.
As stated below, there are 2x120mm fans blowing from the left side grill towards the HDD cage.

maybe you should actually look up the case before you complain about it? it has 2x120mm fans on the side of the HDD cage that blows onto the HDDs. And quite a few people here on the forums use it and if it was "a terrible case for hdd's" i think that there would have been more chatter about it

to OP this thread suggest using a piece of cardboard to better focus the air to help lower the HDD temps

Thanks, I was actually working on a cardboard separator... getting in there was not fun, but it's in. ( have a 'long' version of a psu to allow for a 120mm fan on it, which makes the gap between the psu and hard drive cage that much tighter)

Temperatures did climb on the cpu 8 degrees (sitting at 39-40c now), but if that becomes even remotely an issue, I'll just get an 80mm noctua fan over it (probably pulling air from the heatsync).

One thing that's puzzling me is the top and bottom drives are showing the hottest (47C and 46C respectively). The middle 2 are showing 41C and 45C. At the moment I think too much air is flowing through the top 'empty' part of the drive cage. I think once I get my other 3 drives in there, it will force the air to flow between the drives a bit more. Also, I will probably block the slit for the empty drive slot with painter's tape or something to really force the air to move between the active drives. But I'll see if that's necessary when I get there.

I also tried to set the drives to spool down in 10 minutes (HDD standby : 10minutes), just to see if that makes a bit of a difference, but they seem to always be running

Prior to my cardboard shield install, I was trying to get some temps on the drives using my good ole kitchen thermometer. Only drive I could get any bit of contact with, was the top drive and hottest it read was 31C (but air was flowing around the probe cooling it down). I also looked between the drives with my lazer / optical thermometer, highest I managed to get was 41C.


Thanks for the replies, and let me know what temps you guys are seeing? in the past i've not had drives run this warm, so i am a bit worried.

 

[SweetAndLow]

The way you check HDD temps is with smartctl -a /dev/daX. This will be the number you should worry about

 

[PhilZJ81]

The way you check HDD temps is with smartctl -a /dev/daX. This will be the number you should worry about

ya been using this script to check all in 1 shot.

!/bin/sh drives=`sysctl -n kern.disks | awk '{for (i=NF; i!=0 ; i--) print $i }'` for drive in $drives do ( smartctl -a /dev/${drive} | awk '/Temperature_Celsius/{print $0}' | awk '{print $10 "C"}' ) done


oddly enough, my 2 HGSTs that arrive today (serial number starts with a different letter, but everything else looks the same) run about 4C cooler? Anyways, I'm about to launch the badlocks test from this thread:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-hard-drive-burn-in-testing.21451/

wish me luck!

 

[Kevin Horton]

Please confirm the number of fans you have (I think it is three). Which fans are pushing air into the case, and which fan(s) are pulling air from the case?

 

[PhilZJ81]

Please confirm the number of fans you have (I think it is three). Which fans are pushing air into the case, and which fan(s) are pulling air from the case?

There are 2x 120mm fans blowing air directly on the hard drive cage. There is also a 1x120mm fan pulling air out the back of the case, and also, I have my psu fan facing down, so that also pulls air from inside the case and pushes it out the back (alternatively, I can flip the psu and it can pull air from the blow hole at the top of the case).

As recommended by INCSlayer, I build a cardboard divider and I'm forcing all the air blown in from the 2x120mm fans to go 'through' the HDD cage. Without that, eventhough it blows on them, there's a roughly 3-4 inch gap where that air blows into the rest of the case. Now that cardboard separator is from the bottom of the case up to nearly the top (about 1/2 inch gap there to run my power switch, USB cables, and quite honestly, I'm a lousy craftsman and that's as good as it's gonna get...).

I have also ordered a Noctua 4 pin 80mm fan that I will place by the cpu's heatsync in a pull configuration to move some air. With the added cardboard divider, cpu temp went up nearly 10 degrees (from roughly 32C to 42C now). Motherboard also reports that it's running warmer, temps before were 35C now 41C (it was indicating warmer than cpu before, not sure why..) I believe that's partially caused by all the intake air being forced through the HDDs, and secondly, my cardboard divider really killed the airflow over that heatsync. Some air used to hit the HDD cage and deflect towards the back right towards the cpu and out the rear. Now with that area closed off, air blows through the HDD cage completely to the other side of the chassis, and there the rear case fan pulls it out, which completely bypassing the cpu.

 

[ShimadaRiku]

Yea I suggested inserting a cardboard to direct the air in this thread

My 4TB HGST drives are hot at 7200rpm. Without the cardboard HD temps went over 50C. Now they are around 36-40C. Your CPU going from 32C to 42C shouldn't be too much of a concern they can handle much higher temps.

 

[Kevin Horton]

It is quite disappointing that users would have to resort to adding air directors to achieve acceptable HD temperatures. I wonder how many users of this case have no idea that they are cooking their drives.

 

[PhilZJ81]

Yea I suggested inserting a cardboard to direct the air in this thread

My 4TB HGST drives are hot at 7200rpm. Without the cardboard HD temps went over 50C. Now they are around 36-40C. Your CPU going from 32C to 42C shouldn't be too much of a concern they can handle much higher temps.

Yep I saw that thread, I'll post a picture after I'm done with my badlock tests. How many drives do you have in your case? I have 6x6TB HGST, and 1x Seagate 6TB, all of them 7200rpm.
As I stated in another thread, what is interesting to me, is the 4 HGSTs with a serial number starting with K1G run the hottest (48C-49C currently), then the 2 HGST starting with serial starting with are running at (43C and 44C currently), and finally the Seagate is at 36C.

The other interesting thing to me, is that the temperature didn't seem to change much (maybe 2 degrees if memory serves me right) on the HGSTs from idle to running badlocks (currently running on all drives for 24hours).

I have the nocuta 80mm 4 pin fan on it's way, I do plan on using PLEX, so I don't want any heat issues.

It is quite disappointing that users would have to resort to adding air directors to achieve acceptable HD temperatures. I wonder how many users of this case have no idea that they are cooking their drives.

I agree that it's quite disappointing, but I have a strong suspicion that if you get WD Reds in there, they run much cooler, it wouldn't be a problem. I've not bought any WD drives recently (newest one I have is a 1TB black) but if my memory serves me right, the WDs used to run cooler than the Seagate. If we compare the 6TB seagate currently in my NAS that's sitting at 36C with the HGSTs, it's 13-degrees cooler. In other words, unless you are running these HGSTs, you'll be fine. I can't say I'm happy with how hot these drives run, you'd think there would be more comments about that fact in the reviews. Looking at the spec sheet on the drives, all it says is operating ambient temperature and the upper limit is 60C. Well it's not 60C ambient in my case, and there's a decent amount of airflow that is now forced over the drives with my cardboard shroud.

 

[Bidule0hm]

the WDs used to run cooler than the Seagate.

They seems to be running at the same temp, maybe 1 °C hotter than the Seagates if anything.

Looking at the spec sheet on the drives, all it says is operating ambient temperature and the upper limit is 60C. Well it's not 60C ambient in my case, and there's a decent amount of airflow that is now forced over the drives with my cardboard shroud.

The 60 °C in the datasheet isn't ambiant but the driver temp.

If you don't want to reduce the life span of your drives you should keep them under 40 °C, whatever the datasheet says.

 

[PhilZJ81]

They seems to be running at the same temp, maybe 1 °C hotter than the Seagates if anything.



The 60 °C in the datasheet isn't ambiant but the driver temp.

If you don't want to reduce the life span of your drives you should keep them under 40 °C, whatever the datasheet says.

from HGST:
"Environmental (operating) Ambient temperature 5 to 60 C Relative humidity (non-condensing) 8% to 90% Shock (half-sine wave, G) 70 Vibration (G RMS 5 to 500 Hz) 0.67 (XYZ)"

Ya, I agree with you, I always read the 40C being the magic number, but for these HGSTs, ain't gonna happen. The Seagate will hopefully have a happy life at 36C

In another note, the 2 HGSTs that run cooler in my case are 4% behind the other HGST (on the Sata2 port). The sata3 port HGSTs are 10% ahead of the slowest ones.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Ok, my bad. In the WD and Seagate datasheets it's the drive temp who is specified.

But, yeah, it's the operating temp range, not the longest life temp range (which is 30 to 40 °C).

 

[PhilZJ81]

Ok, my bad. In the WD and Seagate datasheets it's the drive temp who is specified.

But, yeah, it's the operating temp range, not the longest life temp range (which is 30 to 40 °C).

It's all good, I had to do a double take on the lingo too, I'm used to drive temp as well. Perhaps these drives were geared towards being in datacenters with massive airflow and 55-70F ambient temperatures. My office for the most part sits at 76-77, but I don't see how i can drop these drives to below 40C without using my 2 tornado 120mm fans which are louder than my toy drone taking off, so not happening. I might shoot an email to HGST asking about the temperature disparity between the exact same model of their drive but with different serial number (delta of 7C during my badlocks currently) and also mention to them that I have a 7200RPM Seagate in there, and he's sitting 14C cooler.

I certainly do appreciate everyone's feedback on this, if anyone else with this case has any input, I obviously welcome your opinion and the drive configuration / temperatures.

Now I'm gonna wait for badlocks to finish and run a long SMART test. Then open the case up and put my Noctua NF-A8 fan on the cpu. (not sure how to mount it yet, but I'll come up with something, probably the spring out of some paper clips to pinch it against the fins.)

 

[ShimadaRiku]

Yep I saw that thread, I'll post a picture after I'm done with my badlock tests. How many drives do you have in your case? I have 6x6TB HGST, and 1x Seagate 6TB, all of them 7200rpm.
As I stated in another thread, what is interesting to me, is the 4 HGSTs with a serial number starting with K1G run the hottest (48C-49C currently), then the 2 HGST starting with serial starting with are running at (43C and 44C currently), and finally the Seagate is at 36C.
.

I have 4x WD Green, 1xSegate usually around 32-35C idle, 36-38C load
1xHGST 5400rpm 1-2C higher than WD/Seagate
2xHGST 7200rpm hottest drives, usually about 5-6C higher than the rest.

 

[PhilZJ81]

I have 4x WD Green, 1xSegate usually around 32-35C idle, 36-38C load
1xHGST 5400rpm 1-2C higher than WD/Seagate
2xHGST 7200rpm hottest drives, usually about 5-6C higher than the rest.

Ah ok, so for HGSTs that's right about where my temperatures are currently for the 2 with a serial that start with NCG (42-43C during badlocks) but as I'm noticing, they are also falling behind some during this test.

 

[tmsmith]

I just recently filled a Supermicro 846 case (with 120mm fan wall) and my HGST's are idling at around 40-41c and 44-46c on load. Running the fans @ 75% helps a lot but I'm hoping to stay at 50% for noise concerns. Everything else I've tried to do hasn't help with temps, aside from increasing fan speeds.

 

[PhilZJ81]

I just recently filled a Supermicro 846 case (with 120mm fan wall) and my HGST's are idling at around 40-41c and 44-46c on load. Running the fans @ 75% helps a lot but I'm hoping to stay at 50% for noise concerns. Everything else I've tried to do hasn't help with temps, aside from increasing fan speeds.

Thanks for your reply, if you don't mind, are the the Deskstar like I have or did you get the nicer 'server' ones. If deskstar, I'm curious what are the 3 first digits of serial number since I've noticed a difference. thanks

 

[tmsmith]

Thanks for your reply, if you don't mind, are the the Deskstar like I have or did you get the nicer 'server' ones. If deskstar, I'm curious what are the 3 first digits of serial number since I've noticed a difference. thanks

I probably should have mentioned that they are the 4TB version, but here is the link to the ones I got. I have a mix of mostly HGST but have some WD's and Toshiba's. The Toshiba's run much cooler at around 31-35c @ 50% fan speed. I've come to the realization that I won't be getting the HGST any lower without sacrificing noise levels.