Disclosed is a disk drive that provides for internal disk drive temperature estimation. The disk drive includes an actuator, a head attached to the actuator, a disk to store data, a preamplifier connected to the head to amplify read and write signals, and a processor for controlling operations in the disk drive including moving the actuator such that the head is moved to read data from and write data to the disk. The processor under the control of a program is further utilized to calculate a junction temperature (J_Temp) based on a breakthrough voltage of the preamplifier, apply a filter to the calculated J_Temp to compensate for temperature noise, and to estimate an internal disk drive temperature based upon the filtered J_Temp.