That's not incredibly hot number by any means. I'm not entirely sure what are the okay zones for hard drives, but with that number, I don't think I'd really worry.
That is a safe temperature! My HDD idles at 30 and on load it's 35! If it were to go over 40 than you can start thinking of a solution!
Mine normaly sits at 29-30. under presure (Video or games) it will probably rise to 32-33. However, this could be due to the intake fan situated in the front between the two HDDs... If it was not there it might have been higher..... Maybe try and do that if you are worried. Also, hd coolers are not very expensive and are really easy to fit... By the way Big B - which will be hotter - SATA drive or IDE? Or should it make any difference? Just had a quick look at Seagate and Fujitsu sites and in both places the recomended operational temps are 5-50C. They did however mention adequet cooling..... Keep it (AC) cool!
Neither, the difference between SATA and PATA is the controller and interface, the actual disks are the same.
yeah i currently have no fan blowing over my HDD its idle temp is about 38*C, and under load it can reach 42*C, if i put my HDD cooler on it it lowers to 25*C but the cooler is noisy...i dont like noise from my silent computer anymore