Hot Drives in Pool?

[forestplay]

Hello,

 

I just installed DrivePool & Scanner with a new 5-bay enclosure.  All new drives, two of them are running very hot.  I'm wondering if there's a way to figure out why using DrivePool & Scanner.

 

The enclosure is an ORICO 3559SUSJ3.  It's filled with five 3TB WD Red drives.  It's connected to a Windows 8.1 PC with DrivePool, Scanner and SnapRAID.

 

The top two drives where installed a week ago.  I created my drive pool at that time.  There's about 600GB of data on both.  

 

I have received several warnings from Scanner about temperature.  They are running about 115 deg F most of the time.  Occasionally the temp drops to less than 110deg and the notificaiton is received that the hot drives have cooled off.

 

Three additional drives were added to the enclosure two days ago and immediately added to the pool.  They are not running hot.  106, 100 and 95 degrees from middle of the enclosure to the bottom.  As of yet, they are not yet holding much data.

 

The last of the three is not in the pool as it is being used as the parity disk using SnapRAID.

 

Watching DrivePool, there is no activity in the pool yet the temp is still as I describe above.  It's as if the drives are going full blast even though nothing is in process.

 

Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can figure out what is going on here?

 

Thanks!

 

-Bob

 

[Umfriend]

First, I am not sure 115F is so hot that Scanner would give msgs by default, have you lowered the threashold?

 

Second, I would see, if I could, what temps they would have in another case, e.g., within the actual computer? Or switch them around with the two at the bottom? If that does not make any difference then perhaps these just run very warm and you might want to replace them.

 

Does it have a fan, does it run and have you put it on a low RPM or anything?

 

You can also set Windows to allow these HDDs to suspend after, say, five minutes of idle. In Scanner -> Settings -> SMART (I think) you need to check "Do not query SMART more than every 60 minutes) or so as Scanner will spin up the drives (atually, prevent suspend as it reads quite often by default).

 

This is what I have done in my Server and it made a huge difference from all spinners running at over 40C (104F) to being mostly below 30C (86F) and only two nearing 40C once in a while (during Scanner doing a Scan).

[forestplay]

Thanks for replying to my questions.

 

First, I am not sure 115F is so hot that Scanner would give msgs by default, have you lowered the threashold?

 

Second, I would see, if I could, what temps they would have in another case, e.g., within the actual computer? Or switch them around with the two at the bottom? If that does not make any difference then perhaps these just run very warm and you might want to replace them.

 

Does it have a fan, does it run and have you put it on a low RPM or anything?

 

You can also set Windows to allow these HDDs to suspend after, say, five minutes of idle. In Scanner -> Settings -> SMART (I think) you need to check "Do not query SMART more than every 60 minutes) or so as Scanner will spin up the drives (atually, prevent suspend as it reads quite often by default).

 

This is what I have done in my Server and it made a huge difference from all spinners running at over 40C (104F) to being mostly below 30C (86F) and only two nearing 40C once in a while (during Scanner doing a Scan).

 

I have not change Scanner's defaults.  I assume the message is created because the temp exceeds the mfg's specified max operating temp.  I also would like to see temperatures always below 40C.

 

Moving them around within the enclosure breaks SnapRAID, so I haven't tried that idea yet.  The enclosure's fan seems to be operating.  I can hear it and feel some air coming out of it.

 

I did follow your suggestion to not query more than once in 60 minutes.  This seems to have made a difference.  Scanner is not showing SMART stutus this morning but is reporting the temperature of the two hot HDD to be 39C.  The other three drives in the same enclosure are 30C, 29C and 31C from middle to bottom of the stack (where the top two are both 39C).

 

I don't know how to set Windows to allow these HDD to suspend after 5 minutes of idle.  This makes a lot of sense since they are essentially media drives that will get access primarily in the evenings when we are at home.  They should be a quiet as possible most of the time. How is this configured?

 

One thought that came to mind is that the two top drives, which where the only two in the case for 3 days, were not being cooled by the fan as the air was moving unhindered through the empty bays.  Now that all the bays are full, they are getting some air flowing by.  They have cooled in the last 24 hours.  I will watch them closely for the next few days.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

-Bob

[Christopher (Drashna)]

115F is about 46C, which is rather hot, and enough to trigger a temperature warning on the drive in StableBit Scanner, by default. 

 

For internal drives, this is very hot. For USB enclosures, not so much (unfortunately, actually, as temperature can affect lifespan). 

 

The default max temperature is 44C or 110F. This is over ridden when the drive has an actual max rated temperature (which tends to be 60F or 110F.  

There is also a warning notice for when the drive is 15C or 27F below the max temperature. 

 

 

These settings can be configured per disk, in the Disk Settings option (right click on the disk).

 

 

 

But basically, external enclosures almost always run drives hotter than when they're inside a computer. Better airflow and more empty space to dissipate the heat. 

 

 

 

But as Umfriend has mentioned, changing the SMART settings may help with disk idling, and temperature.