8170, SSD vs HDD, does it matter for system temps?

So I will have my 8170 arrive tomorrow, happy day for me
Specs: 2.2ghz i7, 8gb ram (2gb x 4 dimms), 6990m, 500gb hdd.

I'm in the middle of building two systems right now, and here are the hard drives / SSDs I have at my disposal.

Crucial M4 256GB SSD
Intel 320 160GB SSD
500GB 7200RPM HDD (that comes installed in the 8170)
Seagate 1TB 7200RPM External HDD USB 2.0.

There is no doubt I want reinstall windows on one of the SSDs for fast boot ups, so for now the Crucial M4 is probably going to be the main drive for my 8170.

Now here's my dilemma: From all the research I've done, SSDs use less power and run significantly cooler than a HDD. I could use the Intel 320 as the second drive for my 8170, but that to me is overkill, would rather use it as the boot drive for my other system. I would have the 500GB drive that I could use for the second drive, but that would run hotter than the Intel 320.

So here is the question: Would I see a significant difference in overall system temps if I just left out the 500GB from the system and just used my external drive instead? I just think this is something that most people do not factor in, a laptop with mulitple HDDs compared to just one SSD would have much higher temps right?

 

Hard drive heat is not really anything to worry about. I'd suggest the SSD in the primary position and the 500GB in the secondary position. Even though one will run cooler than the other, it'll make a very small difference in overall system temps.

 

It's actually a misconception that SSD's use much less power than HDD's. They're usually pretty equal anymore as HDD's have become quite efficient. As for heat, as J.P. pointed out- hard drives just don't produce that much of it. Only enterprise drives like 10k RPM models get particularly warm.

 

Ok thanks for the replies... I'll just use the 500GB in the second slot.