Thinkpads Forum

I particularly care about HD temperatures, because high temperatures are particularly damaging to hard drives (at least non-flash drives), and hard drive failure can mean data loss. My X61 HD reaches a temperature of close to 60C while idling. If the CPU is working hard (but the HD is idling), then the temperature reaches around 62C. I haven't stressed the HD itself, but I suspect temperatures would go even higher.

I am using Ubuntu, and I set the fan temperature manually to be constantly at the highest level for testing purposes, and the benefit regarding the HD temperature are very modest (just about 2 or 3 degrees Celsius).

If I don't solve this problem I will have to retire my X61 and replace it with something like another X200.

Some additional information: I'm inspecting the HDD temperature (along with fan speed) using the gkrellm program in Ubuntu 12.04. The HD is just a run of the mill Western Digital drive, well rated and without known problems.

is this common with X61 systems? I'm wondering if drive failures are more common in the X6x family because of this.

You need to be more specific, like: WD [model]/320GB/5400rpm/4MB cache.
I use an X61s with 32GB SSD (only for traveling) and an Intel 6200 wifi card.
No heat problems at all.

RealBlackStuff wrote:You need to be more specific, like: WD [model]/320GB/5400rpm/4MB cache.
I use an X61s with 32GB SSD (only for traveling) and an Intel 6200 wifi card.
No heat problems at all.

Thank you, RBS.

My drive information is Western Digital (WDC WD3200BPVT-22JJ5T0)/320GB/5400rpm/8MB cache.

Glad to know you have no heat problems with your HD (I wonder if it has to do with the fact it is an SSD, although I doubt it, since even when both the CPU and HD are idle, the HD temperature in my X61 reaches 60C).

Also, I've heard the X61s should be quite cooler than the X61,

The full output from sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda1 (minus irrelevant stuff is below, in case it helps you).

**********
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: WDC WD3200BPVT-22JJ5T0
Firmware Revision: 01.01A01
Transport: Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6
Standards:
Supported: 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 8
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 625142448
Logical Sector size: 512 bytes
Physical Sector size: 4096 bytes
Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 305245 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 320072 MBytes (320 GB)
cache/buffer size = 8192 KBytes
Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
Advanced power management level: 254
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* NOP cmd
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Advanced Power Management feature set
SET_MAX security extension
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* 64-bit World wide name
* IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Host-initiated interface power management
* Phy event counters
* Idle-Unload when NCQ is active
* NCQ priority information
* DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
Device-initiated interface power management
* Software settings preservation
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)
unknown 206[13] (vendor specific)
unknown 206[14] (vendor specific)
**********

Since I still had lying around the original HD this X61 came with, which has a Windows 7 installation, I popped it in, installed SpeedFan, and tried to figure out how hot it would get. It turns out that it runs about 12C cooler than the other one in Ubuntu 12.04. Not sure it if is the HD itself or the OS. This drive is also 5400rpm, by the way: Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00, 5400rpm, 8MB Cache.

The only way to figure things out I suppose will be to install Windows 7 on the offending drive. The problem is that I don't have a Windows 7 installation CD. Perhaps I should install Linux instead on the cool drive. Yes, I will do that...

Let us know how this goes. I have used Linux on-and-off the last couple of years. My experience is that the hard drive area becomes very warm when using Linux compared to Windows. Perhaps power management needs to be tweaked in Linux?

emeraldgirl08 wrote:Let us know how this goes. I have used Linux on-and-off the last couple of years. My experience is that the hard drive area becomes very warm when using Linux compared to Windows. Perhaps power management needs to be tweaked in Linux?

Thank you for pointing that out, emeraldgirl08. I know in general power management in Linux hasn't caught up yet with Windows. Also, this is the first time that I am keeping track of hard drive temperatures, as I usually only check CPU temperatures. I'll do some back ups and then I will experiment and report back.

Quick update: I did some research, and the reading i was using (from the IBM ACPI interface) is much higher than the SMART reading the HDD reports. So I think the IBM ACPI data might be unreliable regarding HD temperatures.

I started this other thread in the Linux section:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=111068

emeraldgirl08 wrote:Let us know how this goes. I have used Linux on-and-off the last couple of years. My experience is that the hard drive area becomes very warm when using Linux compared to Windows. Perhaps power management needs to be tweaked in Linux?

Hi emeraldgirl08,

I figured out what was going on. You can read about it here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 14#p715014

Basically, you should use the HD SMART data. One easy way to do this is to install the hddtemp application in your Linux distribution, then run it with these parameters:
sudo hddtemp <hard_drive_path>

In my case, <hard_drive_path> is /dev/sda1 (I check this quickly with the df command in the terminal).

It turns out my HD is not overheating as I thought. It normally runs around 45C.

Hope that helps!

Thanks! I am bookmarking the topic so I can refer to it when needed! Good job!

emeraldgirl08 wrote:Thanks! I am bookmarking the topic so I can refer to it when needed! Good job!

Thank you, I hope it helps you in the future. I'm not sure why this is not more clearly documented, but perhaps not too many people running Linux (or Windows for that matter) pay attention to their HD temperature, although I think it is at least as important as the CPU temperature if you care about not losing data.

One last piece of information: The hddtemp process needs root privileges to run, so if you want to start it automatically you need to provide a mechanism for it to run with root privileges (by everyone, setting the SUID bit, or by a specific user via visudo, which edits the /etc/sudoers file). A search of this topic would reveal more detailed information.