Heat can kill a computer hard drive. So a Carnegie Mellon University engineer has designed a dime-size sensor that can provide an early warning of a hard drive meltdown.

Called the Critter Temperature Sensor, the device was developed by Michael Bigrigg, a project scientist at CMU's Institute for Complex Engineered Systems. It is now being deployed across the campus.

The institute said it costs $80 to $200 to replace a damaged hard drive. The new sensor may make it possible, however, to extend the lifespan of a hard drive, which now averages about 600,000 hours or 3.1 years.