computers and cold temperatures[OT]

[Colin Law]

On 11 November 2011 15:11, Gilles Gravier <ggravier at fsfe.org> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> On 11/11/2011 16:00, Colin Law wrote:
>>
>> On 11 November 2011 14:57, compdoc<compdoc at hotrodpc.com>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>> IS it a bad thing to have a computer operating, say, in a garage during
>>>> the cold winters?
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>> Dealing with heat in summer is worse than the cold in winter.
>>
>> I think that might rather depend on where you are in the world. :)
>
> Actually, it is GOOGLE who did a study on computer failure rates in warmer
> temperatures, and they found that hard disks, in particular, tend to faire
> better around 35-45°C, which is well above the normally prescribed
> datacenter temperature of 20°C. Have a look at :
> http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/labs.google.com/en//papers/disk_failures.pdf,
> in particular section 3.4 (temperature).

Not necessarily disagreeing, but my reading of that is that the
temperatures are *drive* temperatures not *ambient*.  So a room
temperature of 20C will give air temperature inside the box rather
more that this and the drive will be warmer again.

Colin