inspiron 8200 media bay

It sounds almost plausable, but comparing the wattage consumed by a few drives from 20GB/4200RPM to 80GB/5400RPM indicates that they all run around 2.5 to 3.0 watts and would therefore generate relatively similar ammounts of heat in operation. With the media bay carrier nearly sealed, I might be concerned about the heat build-up during continuous operations like surface testing, defragging, and virus scanning until I got a feel for how hot things got. I suppose a smaller drive would have an advantage in completing these operations sooner, although a larger capacity drive could be partitioned into smaller drives so that advantage could be minimized. It's a good point for consideration, and I'm glag you raised it.

I did note some 7200RPM drives limited to 40 degrees Celcius operating temp while most of the 4200 and 5400 drives I looked at are rated to 55 deg C, but I didn't do a comprehensive study.

I have a media bay carrier that I've used for making Ghost images of my primary hard drives and I've also been considering an 80GB for my I8100, and had not considered thermal issues previous to your post. Nor had I noted the limitation regarding the operating temperature range of (at least some of) the 7200RPM drives.

GM

My 8200's media bay drive used to be my main drive until I upgraded. It runs a lot cooler (normally around 10°C cooler) in the media bay as there is a lot of air around it. The normal bay is completely enclosed and so it became hotter (I know that the normal bay is metal and so would conduct the heat, but it is near to the CPU and graphics card, which both get hot, and so it does not stay as cool as the media bay). At least, that is my experience under normal use (I don't know about heavy use - I rarely use my media bay drive for longer periods of time).