A PHD doesn't make someone a Thermal Dynamics Engineer.
Sometimes I think that the more they learn, the less they know. 

The "Ripping" effect of electronics expanding and contracting is well known in the engineering community and many techniques have been developed to combat it.

Running a COLD drive, is more apt to occur in Minnesota than here in Florida.
While a drive getting HOT is more apt to occur here than in Minnesota.

In either case, when the drive is under load, it WILL heat up.  A hard drive is made up of several dissimilar metals, plastics, glass (PC Boards), etc.  These materials DO-NOT expand or contract at the same rate.  Ergo, the "ripping" effect of heating and cooling.

Preventing most of that cannot help but extend the life of any drive or other electronic components.  And at less than $5usd for a little drive cooler, I don't see all the hate and discontent this topic has stirred up.  Except maybe that some folks just like to argue and it doesn't matter what the topic.

What really makes me laugh, is the number of people who buy an Intel CPU, over-clock it and then complain that its running HOT.  Then the fight starts over which CPU Cooler is best.
Those threads can go on and on for page after page and there's really no one answer to it.

My AMD CPU is running at the manufacturers recommended speed and is cooled by the Stock cooler that came boxed with the CPU.  And the neatest thing of all is that I can lay my finger on the heatsink at any time and detect only slight warmth.  NEVER HOT!
My first wife ran hotter than that CPU.

BUT, and that's a really big But, I remove my CPU fan and heatsink at least once a year and scrub the dirt out of the heatsink and clean and oil the fan.  Likewise, every fan in my PC (all nine of them) gets a good cleaning at the same time.  Just a little maintenance goes a long way to keeping a PC running cool and happy.

Be COOL and be Happy!
The Shadow 

I'll put my 43 years of electronics experience, in the field and in the research lab,  up against those egg-heads any day of the week.

And, Oh yes, I'll continue to install two-fan coolers with 1/4" standoffs on all my drives.

You just follow the PHD's and I hope you don't loose too many HD's to overheating. 

Of course, you won't really know it died to overheating, it will just die and you won't know why.

I hope there's no hard feelings! 

Shadow 

Let me add another factor. Some drives operate very hot. While the drives may themselves be within allowed temp range, the heat that is dissipated within the case may have some effect on the rest of the electronics. Everyone knows electronics does like heat. So depending on the tolerance of the rest of the electronics to increased heat, there will be correlation between the heat and problem with rest of the components inside the computer.  Personally, I like it cool with all electronics, unless it is unavoidable are expensive or inconvenient to control heat.

mkr

In my working life, I worked for four of the worlds largest corporations that design and build electro/mechanical devices.  I've worked on everything from a small manual cash register to a D-10 CAT and every machine I ever worked on requires Maintenance.

Computer maintenance is as simple as cleaning out junk files and refraging the HD on a regular schedule.  Or it can be more proactive, like cleaning and oiling your fans and blowing out the dust bunnies on a semi-annual schedule.
Maintenance just comes naturally to me, after doing it professionally for so many years.

After adding another three air intake fans to the front of my PC, I now have 15 fans in my system.  It just doesn't bother me at all to check them from time to time and keep them clean and running at top performance.  
PSU fans, scavenged from defunct power supplies, make really good case fans.  Besides being FREE, they are usually quiet too.  So my PC, besides being nice and cool, is nice and quiet too.  It sets right here beside me on my desk and I don't mind the purring sound it makes, at all.
My PC gives me so much pleasure and comfort that I don't mind at all giving something back in the way of TLC.

This is my "Baby" after I added an intake fan to the front panel.  With the red eye looking at me, it reminds me of the "HAL 9000".


Stay Cool!
The Shadow  

Recently, for the first time since building this system, many months ago, I've installed both side panels.  After several hours of operation I noticed that the front part of the side panels was warm to the touch.  That's heat that should be blown out the back, not hanging around inside the case and warming up the side panels. I installed the red fan in the upper front panel as seen in the picture above.  That took care of the heat being generated by the HD that sits right behind those upper drive bay faceplates.
But there was no air-flow to move out the heat being generated by the two HD's that sit in the drive bays in the lower front of the case.
To facilitate that, I added two more case fans to the steel frame, right behind the plastic front panel.  Again, I went to my box of recovered PSU fans.
This picture shows my 3rd hard drive in the upper drive bay, mounted with spacers and the place, in the lower case frame, for two more fans, provided by the case designers.


I didn't like all that grill-work that would block the airflow into the two case fans, so with end-cutters in hand, snip, snip, I removed the grills.

Now the two new case fans can breath more efficiently and blow more cooling air back over my two HD's and move their heat into the back of the case where a large exhaust fan can remove it.
Now, with the case reassembled, everything stays at room temperature.
This added airflow also increases the efficiency of the CPU and GPU coolers.
In my 44 years of working on equipment that had the propensity to overheat and die, I've developed the same mantra as so many other tech's and engineers, "" (electronics).
If that were not true, then NO CPU or GPU would have a cooler affixed to it.  And, NO PSU would have one or even TWO fans installed.

I don't understand the 'Nay-Sayers' that would come on a HELP forum and tell people to just let their PC's run as hot as possible.  That's counter productive to say the least and just plain "Destructive" to say the most.

Windows in their Power Management app, has the ability to shut down a HD that's not being used for XX number of minutes.  Setting that to a low value for a system that seems to be running hot, can greatly reduce the heat that's coming from the HD's, at least.  I set mine to 10 minutes.
For the little "Mini" PC's, that can be exceptionally critical, since they have virtually NO airflow anyway.

As my grade school principal used to say, "A word to the wise is sufficient".

Y'all have a great day now, Y'hear?

Happy Halloween!

Quote:

I am not aware that anyone in this thread has expressed such a viewpoint.

If a PC is running outside of the manufacturer’s temperature tolerances, then corrective action should obviously be taken; if not, then none is obviously needed. For example, I am running three SAS 15K RPM internal hard disk drives in a HP xw4600 Workstation, and they only get ‘warm’ (not ‘hot’) to the touch, cooled by the fans installed in the case by the manufacturer. In this situation, there is simply no advantage to ‘fixing’ something that isn’t ‘broken.’

On a more general note, the BIOS in my workstation has a setting to adjust the default rate of the system fan (located in the rear of the chassis) when the processor is in idle. Some users may simply find it beneficial to increase such a setting to create more overall airflow in the case if needed, rather than installing a new fan in the PC enclosure.