Harddrive hotness.

[Naquani]

Are certain chips on a harddrive supposed to be hot to the touch? I have a fan blowing across the with plently of room in between the drives, and the outter shell is cool as can be, but certain chips on the board are almost hot enough to burn fingers.

I was wondering is that normal? I always knew harddrives ran hot, but never had a fan on them and figured a fan would keep it cool.


Naquani

 

[Ice Czar]

Id try to avoid touching the chips
they are IC semiconductors just like your CPU,
and yes they can get hot, they are also suceptible to
Electro Static Discharge, voltage under your threshold to even feel can fry them.

http://www.esda.org/esdbasics1.htm
http://www.dwpg.com/content.php?contid=2&artid=68

cooling any IC chip will increase its lifespan

Each 10°C (18°F) temperature rise reduces component life by 50%*.
Conversely, each 10°C (18°F) temperature reduction increases component life by 100%. (a rough rule of thumb)
the Arrhenius equation
http://www.shodor.org/UNChem/advanced/kin/arrhenius.html

also google black's equation