Hardware Problem/Question super hot hard drive

[aggie113]

While I was waiting on my 2.5" caddy to arrive from Amazon I installed one of my HGST 6TB drives in the media server to try it out. I save all my movies to a 32TB Synology NAS so the disk was only for whatever data it needed to save while the media server was indexing a few share folders.
When it was time to replace it with a smaller 500GB 2.5" drive I could barely hold the 3.5" disk long enough to remove it from the player. This thing was so hot I literally had to play hot potato with it as I walked over to my counter (and I have some high tolerances for pain). I would caution anyone not needing the space for movies to think about how large a drive they put into the player. Obviously my HGST 6TB disk has a whole bunch of platters spinning in it and they make a heaping helping of heat to go along with it. Apparently that heat doesn't have a good place to go, so if you can swing it, get a drive with a small platter count or better yet a 2.5" drive. I have tested the temp on my current 2.5" and it is doing just fine, but it is only 500GB.
I have a background in IT (heavy on the hardware side), so I go along with the thought that the less heat I can generate near my electronics the happier they will be and the longer they will last.

[signals]

The MServer box has a temperature controlled low-volume fan, so the drive may get warm but should be too bad. Note that the only air intakes are on the bottom of the cabinet, so that area must be able to provide unrestricted airflow.

[aggie113]

Oh their is no airflow in the drive box. I'm sure the heat bleeds through to the rest of the unit which means that little fan has to work just that much harder than it would otherwise.