Hard drive orientation.

[Vaco]

I am currently in the proccess of making myself a new case. Completly from scratch. While some might suggest that I just go out and buy one, thats is no fun and I can never find the perfect case.

While designing this case I inadvertantly created a nice cozy spot for 2 hard drives, complete with a fan to blow on them for cooling. The only hitch is: instead of sitting at the traditional level 0 degree they must sit on end. The six screw holes normaly used to mount hard drives point up and down. ATA connecter twords the back of the case.

My question is: will a hard drive sitting at 90 degrees from its traditional orientation be more prone to failure than one mounted level.

I have seen scsi drives mounted this way, but I do not know how an ata drive would react.

 

[JBT]

I have seen a bunch of old Compaq's and gateway's with them like that. I would assume it is fine. As long you don't move the drive much while it should be fine. But even then Laptop drives get moved around in operations quite a bit too and mine is fine. Sp I tihnk it is safe to try it out.

 

[Vaco]

Silly proprietary computers... 😀

The computer will not be moved much, most likely the hd rack will be supported on rubber washers (with ground wire) to help dampen any vibrations.

 

[Maggotry]

The drives will work fine in any orientation. I've had drives spinning on their side for years.

 

[Zepper]

If you had taken the time to look at the installation manual on your drive mfr's web site, you would know that it is OK by them to mount the drive in any horizontal or vertical position (including nose up or down). They will also usually say not to mount the drive more than 5 degrees off of horizontal or vertical as such positions will accelerate bearing wear.
. But I still have a hard time with the notion of mounting drives upside down (circuit board up). I just refuse to do that! I have gone to the length of making a bracket for a Compaq case in which upside down was the standard mounting position - da*n cheapskates...
.bh.

:moon:

 

[Vaco]

Lol, rtfm? Nah, I never read manuals.

Problem solved, thanks for the replys.

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: Zepper
. . . But I still have a hard time with the notion of mounting drives upside down (circuit board up). I just refuse to do that! I have gone to the length of making a bracket for a Compaq case in which upside down was the standard mounting position - da*n cheapskates...

Yup. It "looks wrong" somehow, whether it works fine that way or not. But at least once I've run a drive just that way in an old system that I had for years and years, when I couldn't hook up cables to it any other way. I needed a much longer ribbon cable, so I could twist it a half twist over, but in the early days there just wasn't much choice about length.


:frown: