Do hard drives need cooling?

stator

If it's in constant use (reading and writing) then you will want to monitor the temperatures and consider a caddy with ventilation. Passive ventilation is probalby fine.
Active ventilation may be necessary if it gets too hot (if it was a large/expensive disc for it's age then it might have multiple heads and platers which would increase the heat generated)

forgotmyname

If you can maintain temperatures of all the hardware in a computer then they are likely to last longer.

As with most computer stuff though there is always a risk of premature failure. I had a brand new 1TB drive fail. It worked just long enough for me to transfer all my photos to it before failing though.

booksurr

booksurr wrote: »

the case is 4 inch wide so I guess a 3.5" disc? Won't fit in new PC's case - I tried !

googler wrote: »

If you're using it as an external drive in partnership with a desktop, why not consider installing it in that desktop as a secondary?

as above

googler

booksurr wrote: »

as above

So ... what's inside it at the moment? Have you opened it up to see?

d0nkeyk0ng

What case does OP have? If it's a tower/minitower, then it should fit.

Strider590

Heat isn't as important as the number of spin up/down cycles and an external storage drive won't see as much use as a drive used to run an OS.

I do have an Antec MX-1 actively cooled esata enclosure, but that drive gets used quite aggressively by my home server and probably needs a bit of help. Passive cooling is nice, it doesn't require maintenance/cleaning, so stick to that unless you really need to move up a notch.

spud17

It's not so much, do they need cooling, more, don't let them get too hot.