SPCR

I am transferring my computer into its new home - the fall silent upgrade.

I could not figure out a way to add the elastic suspension system into the 5.25 bays. I drilled some holes to install the elastic in the front bottom of the case, below the 3.5" drive cage. Next is to string the elastic and insert the HDDs.

Does it matter if the hard drives are installed vertically or horizontally?

HD1: Western Digital 29100 - 9GB (formatted and used in horizontal posn)
HD2: IBM/Hitachi Deskstar 30GB (waiting to be used)

I'm off to bed. I'll finish it up tomorrow - maybe even before breakfast as there are all sorts of computer bits over the kitchen table.

Fastman wrote:Does it matter if the hard drives are installed vertically or horizontally?

I doubt it. Certainly Seagate for the IV, V and 7200.7 say "You can mount the drive in any orientation ...". So on the assumption this can be extrapolated to WD & Hitachi I see no problem. Both my 7200.7 and an older Fujitsu MPGH are hanging on their sides.

Fastman wrote:...Does it matter if the hard drives are installed vertically or horizontally?...

No. In fact, vertical install is part of the normal orientation in some computer cases. As long as you don't have the drive installed at a sloped angle, you should be fine!

Thanks ( for not being silent about this ).

I thought I remebered something about changing orientation of drives after they were formatted and this resulting in some data problems.

I must have been dreaming last night.

Off to finish transferring my system.

Fastman wrote:I thought I remebered something about changing orientation of drives after they were formatted and this resulting in some data problems.

I've heard the same thing over the years but apparently it's one of those old computer wive's tales like "aluminum cases cool better".

Ralf Hutter wrote:

Fastman wrote:I thought I remebered something about changing orientation of drives after they were formatted and this resulting in some data problems.

I've heard the same thing over the years but apparently it's one of those old computer wive's tales like "aluminum cases cool better".

Something like that. Though I haven't heard of this since the days of 20mb MFM hard disks (mid-late '80s?). And back then, I could believe it. Maybe.

Ralf Hutter wrote:...one of those old computer wive's tales...

(I just thought that was an amusing expression)

How much of an angle is tolerable?

I don't want to alert anybody, but there are few posts @ StorageReview about this. IIRC a drive can be installed "standing" on any of the six sides, but it is advised NOT to change the orientation after the drive has been used a while (~few months or more). Changing the orientation may affect the wear and tear of the bearing, and thus make the drive louder.

I don't have any hard evidence though...

Cheers,

Jan

Just a guess here (might be totally wrong):
Wouldn't vertical mounting result in more power being needed to make the disk spin, and thus result in more tear/wear and noise?

i think that harddrives may be mounted on any orientation as long as it is horizontal or vertical, doesn't matter which sides up or down. but they should not NOT be mounted on any angle in between. i think the gyroscopic effect of the spinning disks is a good explanation for this.

check the video here
http://science.howstuffworks.com/gyroscope1.htm
imagine your spinning disk is trying to do that.

if you ever had one of those y.s. tech tmd fans
http://www.dansdata.com/tmdfan.htm
you should know why you should never move your disk while it is on.


about vertical mounting and power needed to spin disk:
i think because of the gyroscopic effect, spinning the disk mounted vertically would not take more power. because while you lift one side of the disk, the other side of the disk is pulling down. so the weight of the side going up is counterbalanced by the side going down.
(well this is me thinking that everything in this world is explainable by simple logics and primitive physics )

i also read once that if a disk is mounted verticaly the head will need more effort going up then down, which will result in slower (and faster? if head is going down) access times. but the difference would be so small that you will never take notice of it, unless you have a database server serving thousands of requests per minute.

lots of interesting stuff people have posted. Hopefully this will be of use:

people who put puters in their car ,see mp3car.com for example, used to preach placing the hard drive vertical. The reason being to prevent the read/write head on the drive from "crashing" into the platters when the car hits a bump. That was five years ago.

Today, people are basically split 50/50 between vertical or horizontal. (standingup or missionary ) I do think it proves vertical will work but its probably best to consult the drive specifications or recommendations. To quote JamesB "Short answer: doesnt matter what alignment. Long answer: read heads are forced upward by air pressure created by rotating platter. Hard drives can handle upwards 75 G forces." not sure how accurate that is.

An interesting side note: These same enthusiats have concluded that placing the drive on bungee cords to absorb road shocks has proved disasterous and advise against it.

Bean wrote:An interesting side note: These same enthusiats have concluded that placing the drive on bungee cords to absorb road shocks has proved disasterous and advise against it.

Not surprising. In that kind of dynamic shock situation, you need a shock absorber to damp the bouncing up/down/sideways as the resonance of the bungee suspension is "excited". I would imagine something like miniaturized shock absorbers similar o those found on cars would work better. Or maybe a vat of mineral oil... (russ?! )

MikeC wrote:

Bean wrote:An interesting side note: These same enthusiats have concluded that placing the drive on bungee cords to absorb road shocks has proved disasterous and advise against it.

Not surprising. In that kind of dynamic shock situation, you need a shock absorber to damp the bouncing up/down/sideways as the resonance of the bungee suspension is "excited". I would imagine something like miniaturized shock absorbers similar o those found on cars would work better. Or maybe a vat of mineral oil... (russ?! )

A trip to local Kyosho distributor would probably solve the "problem".

Cheers,

Jan