Specifications

A Principled Technologies report 3

Workstation heat, sound, and power usage: Lenovo

ThinkStation S30 vs. HP Z420 Workstation

COOL UNDER PRESSURE

The operating temperatures of computers vary considerably. While one

advantage of a cooler workstation is obvious—no one wants a hot office—

workstations running at cooler temperatures also bring other benefits.

It is well known within the IT industry that operating temperatures

degrade hardware reliability. Excess heat can cause hard drives, CPUs, memory,

and other components to fail. For example, overheating can expand hard drive

platters, causing hard drive failure. At the very least, excess heat can reduce the

drive’s effective operating life. According to a recent Fujitsu white paper, hard

disk manufacturers now suggest cooler operating temperatures for drive

enclosures.

Because many users fail to back up their data on a regular basis,

adequate ventilation and cooling in a workstation goes a long way to avoiding

problems such as catastrophic data loss due to hard drive failure.

Many workers are not fortunate enough to have control over the

climate in their offices. Not only do workstations with higher operating

temperatures place extra wear on hardware, but they can make an already

warm office even more uncomfortable.

With system reliability and user comfort in mind, we measured the

temperature of several key internal and external spots on the two workstations

while they were idle and while they were running a heavy workload. However,

given that most workstations run 24 hours a day, we believe the most

appropriate measure of thermal performance is the temperature of the air

exiting the rear exhaust when the workstation is idle.

For each of the locations, we measured the temperature three times

and noted the number of degrees Celsius each measurement deviated from the

ambient room temperature. Because the ambient temperature varied

throughout our testing, the temperature difference between the ambient

temperature and the surface temperature we recorded for each system makes

the fairest comparison.

http://www.fujitsu.com/downloads/COMP/fcpa/hdd/sata-mobile-ext-duty_wp.pdf