My opinion is that rather than elevated temperature itself, changes in temperature lead to earlier drive failure. To quote myself... I just had a Samsung HD501LJ fail. It was in a USB enclosure, and got fairly hot in a short time because I was writing a backup to it. You can't make a statistic on j...

Thumbs up for the Samsung HD501LJ. I got 4 of them, they are quieter than my recent WD 320GB. Actually, they are a lot quieter than any Seagate I've owned (but I've never owned a cuda IV, only 7200.7 and later). Just make sure to use soft suspension, the Samsungs are not very well balanced. Concerni...

Electrostatic units indeed do a very good job on cleaning the air, plus the electrostatic filter is not very restrictive to airflow - meaning this type of unit is relatively quiet. However, most of the electrostatic units tend to emit some ozone. I suppose its health risk is well known. I've also pl...

Sorry for the topic kick, but I thought it was worth it sharing my experiences. I have the same problem, ridiculous amounts of dust all over the place, despite regular vacuuming (2-3 times weekly). I've done quite a lot of research on air cleaners. Finally, I bought a fairly expensive plasma streame...

My opinion is that rather than elevated temperature itself, changes in temperature lead to earlier drive failure. This might explain the controversy between Google's paper and the experience of home users. Google runs their HDD's 24/7, so there is absolutely no change in temperature. Their servers a...