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Having HDD's on their side?

M

macrospect

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 22, 2004
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With most of the new cases out on the market today, many manufacturers are deciding to put hard drives on their side to save space, in stead of the traditional design where you screw them under the floppy drive in the cage.

Is it "unhealthy" for the hard drives to operate on their side and will it at all shorten the lifespan of the drive?

I ask this because I remeber having a drive, that when I turned it on its side it make a strange sounds like somethnig was slightly grinding, but when I turned it back to a flat position the noise went away.

Thanks!
 
naw you'll be ok. get a lian li and live a peaceful life
 
Any relatively modern HDD doesn't care about how it's positioned. Just don't shake them violently while they're operating and everything will be fine :)
 
I had one hard drive, in the last days of its life, that would only run propertly when on its side. This was useful for pulling the last bits of information off of it before sending it in for warranty replacement.
 
I know not to shake the hdd when its on (or off at that any matter) I was just wondering if having it sideways put any kind of strain on the parts that would cause premature failure. Apparently from what you guys have told me it does not.
Thank you for the replies! :)
 
There are many rack systems that have the hdd's on their sides, also modern hdd are fairly robust so mount those disks in all sorts of crazy ways...
 
in my lian li case i had 4 mounted sideways. not a single problem out of one. also i think that if anything it should help prolong their life because rather than having the heat from the bottom hdd rise to the one above it and so on for the hdds above them. when they are mounted on their side the hot air rises up and doesnt hit any other hdds mounted above ( unless obviously you have some hdds mounted above them somewhere, mine werent. they were all in a row.) i recommend the sideways mounting, should help keep your hdds cooler.
 
noremacyug said:
i recommend the sideways mounting, should help keep your hdds cooler.
Click to expand...

Is this really true? If so I might give it a go and get rid of my HDD fan.
 
kbong said:
Is this really true? If so I might give it a go and get rid of my HDD fan.
Click to expand...
In a proper setup, convection will definitely help to get rid of the warmed up air between the HDDs when placed vertically.
 
The only thing manufacturers recommend is not placing them at an angle, like 45 degree's or 30 degrees, either horizontal or vertical is fine. Used to be a problem with older drives if you mounted them sideways you always had to run them sideways as it would change the way the heads would line up. Now, it's not an issue.
 
the only thing that will harm drives is running them outside of what they are designed for. if they were designed to be run on their side or upright, then run them either way. if they were designed to be run only in jello, then run them only in jello. :D just read the specs on the drive, and follow their rules and your drive will be fine, and if it has problems which some always do, its just a lemon and RMA the thing. fact of life for modern electronics, and anything that is mass produced in our modern society.
 
reminds me of some old HDDs that could not be grounded (their bodies). jeez, that was a headache.
 
Emachines (and for a brief period Dell) used to like to mount a hard drive connectors-up against the front of the case. I guess it saved on metal for a drive cage; it sure didn't save any space or improve cooling.
 
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