Well, given that an HDD will, most assuredly be attached by the side, to a large steel plate, IMO, it's more than likely that if the drive was designed to have any kind of cooling, beyond airflow, it would be through the sides. What's also obvious is that it's not a complete solution.
We've debated this often. I believe that the heat that comes from the spindle motor will be dissipated into the HDD case, leaving the electronics to be cooled by another mean. We've also mentionned that cooling the top side of an HDD wouldn't work nearly as well, to cool the spindle motor, because of everything "in between".
Side cooling sucks, and I wish there was a better way, because I'm not looking forward to making a new mount for the larger drive(s).
As for the temp differences, we could go on and on about how the temp is measured, but I just don't care to get into that debate, unless someone's got some really good insights into it.
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