[TAG] 2c tip: measuring the temperature in your computer room during the day

[Yan-Fa Li]

Hi,

I've found a useful side effect of running smartd on my drives at home 
which I've used for a while now
to monitor the temperature in my apartment.  A lot of newer IDE drives, 
especially IBM/Hitachi's and SCSI
hard disks monitor the drive temperature.  I've found this to be a 
useful way to figure out how hot it is
in my computer room at home :D

Assuming you've already installed smartmontools, this was tested with 
version 5.26:

# smartctl -a /dev/hda | grep 194
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0002   161   161   000    Old_age   
Always       -       34 (Lifetime Min/Max 20/37)

As you can see the drive is a toasty 34 degrees celsius.  Of about 5-7 
degrees above ambient, it's about 27-29C
or 80-85F in that room right now.  Not great for the equipment but 
survivable.  Anyway, not terribly useful,
but interesting nonetheless :D

Yan