Extreme Temp Hard Drive Experiences

**Punky** · 08-25-2009, 12:33 PM

With all the discussions going around about operating hard drive at extreme temps, I think its a good idea to have a thread devoted to user's experience with their HD. So other users can make informed decisions when they purchase hard drives for their carpc.

Please post your hard drive model and working limits, also where your pc is mounted.

Here is mine:

Patriot Warp V.2 mounted in the trunk
Max Temp: +33*C
Min Temp: -15*C (broke after)
Wouldn't recommend this one for cold winters.

OCZ Vertex 32GB mounted in the trunk
Max Temp: +33*C (this is as hot as it gets here this summer)
Min Temp: -30*C (still working fine, waiting for even colder temp to see)

**eigenVector** · 09-17-2009, 10:37 PM

Punky, what tools are you using to read the OCZ Vertex temps? I can't get HDTune to get a read on mine.

Anyways, here's my past experience:

Climate: Sprint/Summer North Carolina
Hottest Day: 90F
WD Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM mounted in the trunk
Max Temp: +59C
Min Temp: Did not use in winter

I replaced this drive because I did not wish to let it exceed Western Digitals max operational temperature for this drive of 60C. Anything above 50C would show a dramatic drop in performance on my PC as well. I replaced it with the same OCZ Vertex 32GB as Punky, but do not know the operational temperatures. I moved the WD to my laptop as a data drive, and it is operating as good as new. The OCZ is super fast. Quick boot times, fast image texture loading on my mapping software too.

**TruckinMP3** · 09-17-2009, 11:24 PM

Every 6 months or so this topic gets trotted out.... Even the same model from the same mfg can have different results.

I do not think you will get a be all end all answer even if everyone that is currently reading and posting answers.

That being said.... I run the cheapest drive I can with out issue in record low and high temps in Denver.
The rest of the specs are in the sig.... nothing special and not one issue, mounted in the center console.

**Punky** · 09-17-2009, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by eigenVector

Punky, what tools are you using to read the OCZ Vertex temps? I can't get HDTune to get a read on mine.

Anyways, here's my past experience:

Climate: Sprint/Summer North Carolina
Hottest Day: 90F
WD Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM mounted in the trunk
Max Temp: +59C
Min Temp: Did not use in winter

I replaced this drive because I did not wish to let it exceed Western Digitals max operational temperature for this drive of 60C. Anything above 50C would show a dramatic drop in performance on my PC as well. I replaced it with the same OCZ Vertex 32GB as Punky, but do not know the operational temperatures. I moved the WD to my laptop as a data drive, and it is operating as good as new. The OCZ is super fast. Quick boot times, fast image texture loading on my mapping software too.

My old case had a temp probe which i placed on the HD to read the temp.
I did noticed that the OCZ is extremely fast as well, perhaps too fast for a carpc, but hell its pretty cheap so who cares!

Originally Posted by TruckinMP3

Every 6 months or so this topic gets trotted out.... Even the same model from the same mfg can have different results.

I do not think you will get a be all end all answer even if everyone that is currently reading and posting answers.

That being said.... I run the cheapest drive I can with out issue in record low and high temps in Denver.
The rest of the specs are in the sig.... nothing special and not one issue, mounted in the center console.

I doubt exact same HD will perform exact the same under the same condition, but
they would be very similar, and hence why i created this thread.
I too ran a lot of 3.5" in 35*C to -45*C, and they performed fine, but i see a huge performance drop in sub 30*C temps, even times where there's huge delay for the drive to spin up before boot.

**nobb** · 09-18-2009, 10:53 AM

Good idea to have this thread. I wish there would have been better user data as to which drives would work in the winter, then maybe I wouldnt have gone through so much money blindly picking out drives when I first got started with my carpc. All of my "normal" 3.5inch desktop non extreme environment drives have died or started to go bad after being exposed to the cold. Calgary's winters hit hard, so its pointless to run a normal hard drive here.

>Hitachi Endurastar 4200rpm. Sold to punky after, forgot if it was the 20G or 30G model. tested down to -30C, never had a single problem.

>Seagate EE25 20G, rugged model. Rated by Seagate to work down to -20C, but from my testing it's only good down to -27C. Below that, you have to wait until the drive warms up a bit. I suspect the liquid bearings are too viscous. After having a few extra seconds to spin up, the drive is good.

>Seagate EE25 80G, extreme model. Rated by Seagate to work down to -30C. From my experience, even at -35C it was good. No experience with temperatures below that. This is my top choice for a hard drive so far.

>OCZ Summit 60G. Just got this and replaced my EE25 as the main drive, will update when winter hits.

**nobb** · 12-02-2009, 10:29 AM

Left my car outside last night in -17C. This morning, resuming from hibernation felt noticeably slower. The resuming from hibernation status bar thing took about 5 seconds longer than usual. I am assuming my new OCZ Summit is slow when cold? I dont think it is my motherboard or my other components because last winter with my Seagate EE25, everything was just as fast from -40C to +30C.

Weird.

**fridgemagnet** · 12-02-2009, 10:54 AM

Guys, good ventilation is the key here, in my experience HDD are all much of a muchness.

Ventilation is obviously key to cooling in summer, but also in winter to circualte heat from the CPU/Mobo around components in the case.

**Maheriano** · 12-02-2009, 10:57 AM

regular Toshiba 2.5 inch laptop drive
mounted in the trunk
Max Temp: 40*C
Min Temp: -40*C (without windchill, -50 with windchill)

Hard drive has been going for 3 years, no permanent problems. The only issue is it won't spool up at anything below -10*C because of the viscosity of the bearing fluid or something.

**Punky** · 12-02-2009, 11:14 AM

It was about -15*C when i started my car this morning, it started instantly. Felt about the same as usual. (OCZ Vertex)

**nobb** · 12-07-2009, 10:56 AM

-30C this morning, and once again, my OCZ Summit was slow. The computer resumed just fine, but everything was laggy and stuttering. Rebooting fixed it, but I tested my OCZ Summit and it was only doing around 7MB/s sequential read/write (it usually does 100+ MB/s). My Seagate EE25 however, maintained a 40MB/s read/write no problem. Through out my drive to work today, the OCZ Summit maintained a speed of only 7MB/s probably because my carpc is installed in the trunk, so it never really warms up.

The OCZ Summit uses a Samsung controller...how are you guys with the Indilinx drives doing?