Hard disk ventillation and system temperature
Here you can see when I reconnected the failed Maxtor. The temperature of the Seagate (as reported by the disk drive's S.M.A.R.T. system) immediately increased by 4–5 degrees. Note that the Maxtor ran cooler, probably because the Maxtor is mounted below the Seagate.
After taking out the plastic faceplates in front of the two drives (leaving the metal casing intact), the temperature of the Seagate immediately dropped by 8 degrees.
(Both drives are now fitted with Zalman ZM-2HC1 heatpipes. Obviously, this shows that heatpipes are useless without the ventillation. Or perhaps worse than useless if you have several drives mounted on top of each other.)
Unplugging the Western Digital caused temperature to drop again. Or perhaps not, since the cables inside the case were also rearranged.
Now, replacing the “Silenx” (Adda) 120mm fan with a Nexus caused the Maxtor’s temperature to rise, but the Seagate’s temperature stayed the same. This is a bit mysterious.