Hard drive positioning issues?

[AstroGuardian]

Hello there,

I have a new slim case but it seems like the hard drive should be placed vertically. Do you happen to know about any long term problems from running a hard drive in vertical position or in upside down horizontal position?

I have never read about issues caused by hard drive placement positions. I have also never seen a vertical hard drive placement in any IBM servers i have seen but have seen it in HP servers a few times.

So, anyone has a solid reason why hard drives should not be placed vertically? Let's not discuss about cooling, since placement influences cooling only marginally.

Thx all.

 

[mv2devnull]

Look at enclosures, like here. There are both horizontal and vertical. Common external drive must have vertical drive in it. Some high density rack enclosures actually do have the connectors at bottom, so you have to "push down" the drive.

So if the big datacenters do go vertical, it cannot be a terribly bad thing.

 

[Blitz1776]

From what I've been told and have observed it doesn't really matter what orientation you use. The only important factor that seems to be stressed is that you keep it in that position if it's going to be long term.

 

[bryanl]

Seagate prohibited vertical orientation for drives made before ~1993, but only when the front faced downward, as that could cause imbalance of the head arm assembly around its pivot point. However I saw a Maxtor drive mounted that way in an old Gateway, Dell, or Compaq.

 

[Blain]

If the drive has some age on it, it's best to keep it in the same orientation as it's lived its life.
Jostling the HD around can possibly knock loose dust from the internal filter.
Loose dust in the HD enclosure can cause platter damage.

But for a newish HD, mount it any way you want.

 

[RebateMonger]

Years ago there were certain orientations that weren't recommended by some disk makers. I know of no current restrictions by anybody. Modern bearing designs and voice coils (versus stepper motors) for head positioning are the likely reasons.

Hard drives have been mounted vertically in some PCs for decades.

 

[Rubycon]

Biggest enemy to any mechanical disk is shock or excessive (rotational) movement when powered on, heads unparked.

I agree if the drives have been running in a server for years in one position and are moved they can fail suddenly. Hit or miss I suppose but keep them still when running and they are happy.

 

[Russwinters]

Actually that orientation is horrible for the drives, the only reason data centers do it is because it is vastly more space efficient, and they change out the drives regularly anyways (not to mention they are nested, so chances of RAID failure are VERY low)


If the drive spins at 5400-15000rpm, and you have the disks oriented in that fashion it creates an excessive amount of downward pull on the the spindle, that can actually bend it over the course of time eventually causing eccentricity in the disks, and complete motor failure.

 

[C1]

It is true. Many HDDs and their manufacturers warned to not run their drives vertically. However, the orientation in my Lian Li case is for vertical positioning and I have run four Maxtors & WDs HDDs that way now for gett'n on seven years without incident, so I dont know. Further, my new Hitachi 2TBs externals come with a stand for vertical orientation. The drives definitely run cooler that way because air convection is thru the provided side-of-case vent holes and is better supported that way.

 

[tweakboy]

I agree its not a problem, but if the enclosure falls to its side then you might have a problem, soo take care of it..

 

[bryanl]

Actually that orientation is horrible for the drives, the only reason data centers do it is because it is vastly more space efficient, and they change out the drives regularly anyways (not to mention they are nested, so chances of RAID failure are VERY low)

If the drive spins at 5400-15000rpm, and you have the disks oriented in that fashion it creates an excessive amount of downward pull on the the spindle, that can actually bend it over the course of time eventually causing eccentricity in the disks, and complete motor failure.

How can that downward pull be anywhere as strong as the centrifugal full from the rotation?

I don't know about fluid bearings used in modern drives, but ball bearings in older drives were rated for twice as much radial force as thrust force, meaning they should hold up better with the drive vertical than horizontal. There's also torque caused by gravity procession when the platters are spinning vertically, but I've never read anything about it being harmful to drives.

 

[C1]

I agree its not a problem, but if the enclosure falls to its side then you might have a problem, soo take care of it..

You betcha. I used (and thank God for) glue dots to fasten the little (vertical hold) plastic stand to a larger 5 x 4.5" extra (double) thick piece-o-cardboard so that the drive would be very very difficult to tip over. (I doubt the drive could be made to fall over even if you kick it with your foot, but doing that would probably kill it the same.)

 

[Blain]

If the drive spins at 5400-15000rpm, and you have the disks oriented in that fashion it creates an excessive amount of downward pull on the the spindle, that can actually bend it over the course of time eventually causing eccentricity in the disks, and complete motor failure.

Russ,
It's just you and me brother, nobody else is listening. With the reliability and longevity of current HDs, do you honestly think a drive would live long enough for the downward pressure to have any impact?

If so, would there be enough evidence for consumers to launch and win a class action suite against any OEMs that mount HD in that fashion?

 

[stargazr]

We have a 6 year-old IBM A50 Thinkcentre with a WD 320 GB drive mounted in a vertical pivoting drive bay and it still works, as opposed to the rest of the computer.

 

[Russwinters]

How can that downward pull be anywhere as strong as the centrifugal full from the rotation?

I don't know about fluid bearings used in modern drives, but ball bearings in older drives were rated for twice as much radial force as thrust force, meaning they should hold up better with the drive vertical than horizontal. There's also torque caused by gravity procession when the platters are spinning vertically, but I've never read anything about it being harmful to drives.

I don't believe that it has to do with a more powerful force, but an uneven force.

Drives are designed with servo data on the disks that are a position error signal. This error signal can account for a certain amount of NRRO (Non Repeatable Run Out), but over the course of time the spindle may be bent by a fraction of an inch, and for a HDD this can be much more dramatic.

It's not COMMON, but it can happen. Some HDD manufacturers are implementing features to prevent it, like securing the spindle from both ends.

But with FDB it can still be an issue since the inner part of the spindle is basically floating in fluid.

 

[Diogenes2]

It's not COMMON, but it can happen.
......

The downward pull can't be any more than the weight of the platter and spindle, minus the effect of centripetal force due to rotation..
Any guess how many grams that might be ? And how it could possibly bend a spindle ?


No one should even consider the possibility that a vertially mounted drive is more likely to fail than one mounted horizontally or any angle in between ...

 

[Russwinters]

It's enough. Trust me.

I do data recovery, I see drives that have bent spindles from this every month. This isn't a "if" it is a fact. You can punch as many numbers in as you want it doesn't change the fact that drives fail when they are put in this orientation because of bent spindles.

Trust me, I wish it would go away Platter Transplants are not really what I like to do all day.

 

[Diogenes2]

How do you know the spindles are bent by mounting vertically and not from shock damage?

Wouldn't real life testing bear out your claim?
Where is the test data?

Why don't manufacturers recommend against it ?

I don't mean to be argumentative, I just think it's unrealistic to advise the average user not to mount vertically..

 

[taltamir]

How can that downward pull be anywhere as strong as the centrifugal full from the rotation?

centrifugal pull is equal in all directions and cancels itself out, while gravitational pull only goes one way (down).

drives will work in any sort of odd placement, but I also tend to think its not good for their long term reliability (haven't seen a scientific experiment done on it, so I can't tell for sure either way; I can only make an educated guess)...
that being said, its one spindle drive, they cost next to nothing nowadays and backup is easy. So if you need to, run it vertically, and if it fails a few years down the road... well you got backup and can buy a new one.

 

[Tsavo]

Biggest enemy to any mechanical disk is shock or excessive (rotational) movement when powered on, heads unparked.

I agree if the drives have been running in a server for years in one position and are moved they can fail suddenly. Hit or miss I suppose but keep them still when running and they are happy.

I hate vertical externals like WD has. Too easy to tip while running. *tip* FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

 

[C1]

Im staring at it now as I write. Bottom of page 1 of WDs "Installation Guide" (document# 2779-001001-011) - DO NOT STACK HARD DRIVES OR STAND YOUR WESTERN DIGITAL HARD DRIVE ON ITS EDGE!

 

[Tsavo]

Im staring at it now as I write. Bottom of page 1 of WDs "Installation Guide" (document# 2779-001001-011) - DO NOT STACK HARD DRIVES OR STAND YOUR WESTERN DIGITAL HARD DRIVE ON ITS EDGE!

Edge, or side. Which edge? Which side?

 

[taltamir]

Edge, or side. Which edge? Which side?

it reads to me as if any of them. there are 4 edges and you shouldn't stand it on any of those.

 

[Tsavo]

it reads to me as if any of them. there are 4 edges and you shouldn't stand it on any of those.

I was poking fun at WD, not you. I've got a WD external drive that came with a normal desktop drive in it.

And it stands on it's short side.

 

[Tsavo]

it reads to me as if any of them. there are 4 edges and you shouldn't stand it on any of those.

I count 12 edges.

Also 8 sides if you also count the in side and the out side.