Re: how do turn off an external hard drive (heat!)

[Stuart Levy]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 17:59:53 +0930, Tim wrote:
> > That temperature can rise a good deal if the disk is very active,
>
> I was told otherwise...  Most of the heat being from the disk spinning
> in air, which it does all the time.  The same, whether in use or idle.
> The heads don't do much to generate heat while moving around,
> apparently.

Well... try measuring it!  smartctl is awfully handy.

It's possible that the temp. rise is also related to general
system activity; but I've seen several degrees C rise in temperature
when tarring a filesystem.  Also, manufacturer's specs cite higher
power consumption when active than when idle; for my drive,
spec says 1.05W idle, 2.5W reading/writing, 2.9W seeking.