Operating a Tower PC at 45 degrees

[Caveman]

Just a built a rig... Long story but I need to mount it to a ceiling that slopes ~45°.

I've got a Blue Ray DVD burner, R/W DVD burner, and a standard 1 TB HDD inside. All 3 work right now. I'm wondering it if they will after mounted on the ceiling.

Imagine you're looking directly at the door of the DVD drives, right side up. Now, tilt the tower 45° "left", so that the right side of the DVD door will be "up" relative to the left side which will be down.

I will only need to use the DVD drives very seldomly. As for the HDD, I'll be using that daily though I've heard an HDD should be fine.

Anyone have any real world experience with this?

 

[VirtualLarry]

DVD and HDD drives are specified for vertical or horizontal orientation, but NOT angled. The reason is, they would put an uneven load on the bearing. You can try it, it will probably work... for a while, at least. Long-term, though, it's a bad idea. What about an SSD instead of a HDD? They don't care what orientation they are in space.

 

[Caveman]

I do have 2 other drives in there that are SSD. The 3rd drive is a 1TB data dump. The main ones I'm concerned about are the DVD drives even being able to read a disk while being sideways over time...

 

[freeskier93]

DVD and HDD drives are specified for vertical or horizontal orientation, but NOT angled. The reason is, they would put an uneven load on the bearing. You can try it, it will probably work... for a while, at least. Long-term, though, it's a bad idea. What about an SSD instead of a HDD? They don't care what orientation they are in space.

Your reasoning doesn't make sense. The only time the bearing wouldn't have an "uneven" load is at horizontal. The most "uneven" load would be vertical. If you want a better argument you'd want to look at gyroscopic effects, but I don't believe it would be an issue.

 

[LTC8K6]

Just took my ASUS prebuilt desktop computer and started a CD playing in the internal tray load drive. While it was playing, I tilted the computer to various angles, including all the way over on it's side. I could change tracks with the computer at 45 degrees and 90 degrees, and even while moving the computer. It couldn't have cared less about the angles or the movement.

The disc is held firmly in place while it's playing.

 

[Caveman]

Thanks so much for responses guys...

I was hoping someone would run a real world test. I would do that though because of the state of the PC right now, it would be a pain in the rear...

After reading around, it seemed the probability of an HDD issues is basically zero and an optical drive is still small but possible.

Regarding an ODD, there is a a piece that comes down from the top to grab the DVD as it spins...