hdd mounting

wafflesomd · 10-12-2005, 04:33 PM

so i dont remeber where, but i heard taht mounting a hdd on its side will shorten its lifespan, true?

**Grez** · 10-12-2005, 04:41 PM

The theory is that gravity will cause the platters to wobble when they spin, causing faster wear on the drive. There's probably some merit to that argument. I crammed a third HD into a desktop case at work by side-mounting it, and it was the only one of the three to ever fail. It could just be coincidence, but I wouldn't risk it. I would avoid side-mounting drives if you can.

wafflesomd · 10-12-2005, 04:57 PM

want this case, and will, i could just mount it under the cd drive

http://www.xoxide.com/aspire-x-qpack-case-silver.html

sui_winbolo · 10-12-2005, 05:46 PM

On that case, I see there's a spot for a floppy drive. Mount your HDD there.

ZCC · 10-14-2005, 07:15 AM

I had serveral harddrives mounted on its side. They all broke within a few months to a year. I would suggest you to mount the harddrives flat. If you have a case that has a modual that has the HDDs sidemounted (Like one i have in one of my factory builts), try finding a new place to put it.

VERCETTI · 10-14-2005, 08:01 AM

HDD's have precision balance, and that balance is developed for horizontal mounting

skeeder · 10-14-2005, 08:11 AM

I have 3 drives on the side. You know what? it doesn't matter.

VERCETTI · 10-14-2005, 08:11 AM

skeeder is just a phenom

**Grez** · 10-15-2005, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VERCETTI

skeeder is just a phenom

Too funny, man.

Skeeder, how long have you been running those drives on their side?

))-- tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick --((

Just hasslin' you, man. It's all love in here. If it works for you, it works...but I've had a bad experience with that. I still say leave 'em flat if possible, but lots of people do side-mount them. It's all about how comfortable the individual is with the risk.

skeeder · 10-15-2005, 08:54 AM

actually, if you ever get a chance to look at SCSI arrays (just big parts of servers that are all hard drives.) they are put in on there side.

**Grez** · 10-15-2005, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by skeeder

actually, if you ever get a chance to look at SCSI arrays (just big parts of servers that are all hard drives.) they are put in on there side.

Considering that I approve millions of dollars of hardware and software per year, I've seen a few of these in my life.

You have to remember that these drives are designed differently and intended to be installed that way, and this goes right down to the housing as well. You're talking about arrays of 10,000-15,000 RPM hot-swappable SCSI drives. Because of their performance requirements, the size of each drive is more limited than SATA or EIDE drives, which is why (other than needing more drives for RAID 5) you need such large arrays of drives. When looking at personal-use drives, where there is an assumption that you'll be getting all of the capacity you'll need out of 1-3 drives, there is more emphasis on storage space and less on performance. In order to cram so much storage into a single drive, there is less "slush" when it comes to tolerances, and the drives are much more suseptable to developing errors due to environmental changes (such as being side-mounted). This is one of many reasons why you can get a 300Gb hard drive intended for a PC for $150, while the same capacity of SCSI drives intended for a server array may be $500-$3000. There are significant design enhancements in the latter so that they will perform properly in their expected environment.

Have you ever run a standard PC CD-ROM or CD-RW drive side-mounted? The same problem exists in that scenario, only it's usually a lot easier to personally observe. Often, you can actually hear the increased noise coming from the drive as the disc spins in it and is affected by gravity, and read and write errors occur much more frequently. That is, of course, unless you've got one of those old-school drives that uses one of the disc caddies, which clamps the disc into place. But most drives aren't designed for this type of performance, and there is an assumption that they're going to be flat-mounted. Doing otherwise, while it will function properly most of the time, will generally result in a higher error rate. The same is true of PC hard drives...most of the time, they'll be fine, but the risk of error (and failure) is still higher.

So, if you want to reduce the chances of your PC HD(s) failing, mount it (or them) flat if at all possible. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

lethal_dosage · 10-16-2005, 12:00 AM

i have mine mounted vertically and they have been perfectly fine.

Im pretty sure that you can mount it however you want to and it should affect anything. Can't remember where i read that...