Life expectancy of slimline PC with two drives?

[Gray_Area]

I have a used, though seemingly in very good condition, '07 Slimline Gateway P4 HT 3.2ghz PC.  I have two SATA drives and a DVD drive in it. Lying on a broadside/square fashion, the layout is:

- bottom left: dvd drive atop SATA 500gb drive

- upper right: SATA 250gb drive

The air coming out of it doesn't seem overly warm, but I'm concerned especially about the 500gb drive underneath the dvd drive. Should I be?  Should I be worried at all? Would it be better to have it standing up?

[lilshawn]

do a SMART test...you should be able to pull up a temp on the drives and see if it's getting too warm.

drives actually like to be in the warm range. 35-45 Celsius.

too cool apparently is bad for them too...causes the lube on the platters to stay hard and sticky , increasing the chance of head sticking...too warm and it evaporates, causing the heads to drag on the surface.

you can't win.

[paigeoliver]

Most computers tend to outlive their usefulness altogether with no failures. Power supply failures seem to be the most common physical failure on desktop computers.

If you back up important data there is nothing at all to worry about. You could probably replace that computer for very little money. Place near my house sells Pentium 4 systems with a 17" LCD monitor and windows XP for $99 and most of that cost is the monitor (since they sell 17" monitors for $60).

[Gray_Area]

Perhaps I should've mentioned that the 500gb drive is my back-up.

[kahlid74]

If you're encoding a DVD onto the 500 GB drive it could definitely get hot, but these components are made to get hot.  They key is to make sure there is air movement.  As long as all the vents are open, the heat should dissipate relative to the space.

If you want to make sure it's all good just get a small fan and put it in a place where it can make sure the air moves comfortably.

I forgot to ask, is there any room between the DVD drive and the HDD or are they directly touching.  If they are directly touching then yes, lots of stress on the HDD could lower the life expectancy of it. 

You gotta keep the air moving.  If you can, you'll be fine.