Upon looking at the results from the temperature measurements we can derive that the average raise in temperature is 17.5 C. The only harddisks that got significantly warmer were the 7200-rpm harddisks with large storage capacities, as expected. Especially the Maxtor D740X got pretty warm, with a rise of 22 C above ambient, although this is ‘just’ a 80GB harddisk. For example the 120GB harddisks from IBM and Western Digital didn’t get nearly as hot as the Maxtor. Overall none of the harddisks we’ve tested should run into trouble when used in a mid or mini-sized PC case. Only if the case temperature is around 45 C/ 113 F you’ll need to take extra measures such as mounting a case fan to bring the system temperature down to acceptable levels.