Safe operating temperature for WD Red 6TB

Hello everyone,

I would like to know what is safe, daily operating temperature for WD Red 6TB (WD60EFRX)? I know that the datasheet says 0-60’C, but I found somewhere on the Internet that it shouldn’t go above 45’C, because the failure rate then doubles. The drives are in my NAS which is operating 24/7 and I would be grateful if someone from WD could address that more or less officially.

Thanks!

Greetings,
Kuba

Hello klu16,

I would suggest that you can believe on the data that is provided on the datasheet as these drives go through various test before they are sold in the market.

Hi Neo33,

Thanks for your response. I based my question on this article: Minimizing Hard Disk Drive Failure and Data Loss/Environmental Control - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

But I’m not sure what kind of drives were taken into account there and if WD Reds could endure more with higher temps, if they are NAS drives. I just want my drives to last as long as possible.

60º is the max allowed temp for most electronic devices (graphic cards can go over 100º) but hard drives use aluminium parts and you know what happens when you heat them up ?
my advise is 35º during summer days is perfect, no more.
45º is a lot to me, if you touch the upper cover it’s really warm.

Here are my current temps.

Under high load one of the disks sometimes reaches max. 39-40’C. Ambient temp is 22-23’C.

I recently had a drive go down, and now dont take chances. I fitted a USB fan blowing into the top of the drives, and included a dust filter. The temperature now stays at 33C and all times, without the filter and fan running at low speed it was 30C


Best also fit USB fan speed controller

Hi John, I’ve looking to do something like this, but I don’t know how to. Do you have a tutorial or something I can follow to build something like this? Or where to buy one?

Thanks in advance!

Well you just buy 5v fans, cut a usb lead and solder fan leads on.

First just connect them up to make sure the fan spins in the roght direction.

You can buy the larger fans with speed controller

HARD DISK OPERATING TEMPERATURES – HARDCORE GAMES™