The sensor is located on the case (not near the exhaust) of the server. With the structure of my appartment this is the only place I can realistically put my Server but sadly also the hottest place in my appartment.
The outside temperature is supposed to reach 36°C today so I expect the ambient temp for the server to rise another 2-3 degrees.
To quote that same document:
That’s what I referred to. I don’t see a total age distribution for their HDDs so I have no idea if they simply didn’t have many HDDs in the three-to-four-years range, which would explain how they didn’t see a correlation in the total population. However, they do show a correlation between high temperatures and AFR for drives after more than three years of usage.
My best guess is that HDDs wear out slightly faster at temperatures above 35-40 °C so if your HDD is going to die of an age-related problem it’s going to die a bit sooner if it’s hot. (Also notice that we’re talking average temperature so the peak temperatures might have been much higher).
In a home server where the HDDs spend most of their time idling (probably even below Google’s “low” usage bracket) you probably won’t see a difference within the expected lifespan of the HDD. Still, a correlation does exist and it might be prudent to have some HDD cooling if temps exceed 40 °C regularly.