Placing HDD vertical instead of horizontal

Artas1984 · May 2, 2012

In cases like Enermax SpineRex, what is the disadvantage of hard drives being placed so different? Does it cause faster HDD wearing? Additional noise? You experts say your thoughts!

Disparia · May 2, 2012

No advantage or disadvantage? Hard drives have been positioned in every way imaginable, sometimes multiple orientations in the same case.

DarkOCean · May 2, 2012

jizzler said:
no advantage or disadvantage? Hard drives have been positioned in every way imaginable, sometimes multiple orientations in the same case.

+1

Disparia · May 2, 2012

Thank you.

After thinking about it, I'll rephrase to say that there are no disadvantages to drive orientation -- to the drive itself, but orientation may or may not make things easier or more aesthetic.

I remember some OEM cases way back in the day (HP, Dell, or someone else). The drive cage wa attached to the side of the case with the drives vertical so an extra-short IDE cable could be used. They did it to save money, but it also looked good. Many of us at TPU probably remember trying to make IDE cables look good for drives in the more common horizontal orientation - it didn't always happen

Same could be said for the SpineRex now that I've looked at it. A motherboard with angled connectors + short cables would make for a slick looking drive install, at least for drives in the top bay.

Artas1984 · May 3, 2012

Jizzler said:
The drive cage wa attached to the side of the case with the drives vertical so an extra-short IDE cable could be used. They did it to save money, but it also looked good.

the top bay.

Ye, the pata cables sure looked fine with HDD bend 90 degree..

But what about the rotation of HDD plates? Can anybody tell if there is some wearing in vertical position compared to horizontal?

Athlon2K15 · May 3, 2012

you would think that having a drive on its side would increase wear on the bearing assembly,i have been running my seagate 7200.11's on there side for a few years now and havent noticed any oddities

repman244 · May 3, 2012

Artas1984 said:
But what about the rotation of HDD plates? Can anybody tell if there is some wearing in vertical position compared to horizontal?

I doubt it would make a difference to worry about. Even most storage servers have vertical mounted disks to utilize all the available space.
Example:

I have never seen a HDD die from bearing wear (if it ran in normal conditions), or even seen any bearing wear on HDD's. The bearings are probably rated for 60 000+ hours of operations IMO.

Artas1984 · May 3, 2012

Ok, so if there was any reason for my friend to sell his SpineRex, it was the vertical HDD bay - but now we are convinced enough that it is a no problem...

cadaveca · May 3, 2012

Artas1984 said:
Ok, so if there was any reason for my friend to sell his SpineRex, it was the vertical HDD bay - but now we are convinced enough that it is a no problem...

Yeah, nothing wrong with drives on their sides. got two that were run liek that for 4 years, stil lworking fine. Got one sitting a dock, with the connector end facing down in the dock, no problems with that either, after about 18 months.

Just don't leave them sitting at an angle.

Steevo · May 3, 2012

They are made to run in any orientation, and the heads are tensioned to the correct amount at the factory to float on the air foil effect created by the disk spinning in any orientation.

shakeshuck · May 3, 2012

I don't know if it's an old wives' tale, but I was always told HDD orientation didn't matter as long as you didn't change it.

In other words, if you've had it running for a year vertically don't change the mount to horizontal and expect it to complete its predicted lifecycle.

Fact or fiction... who knows?

Disparia · May 3, 2012

shakeshuck said:
I don't know if it's an old wives' tale, but I was always told HDD orientation didn't matter as long as you didn't change it.

In other words, if you've had it running for a year vertically don't change the mount to horizontal and expect it to complete its predicted lifecycle.

Fact or fiction... who knows?

I have 4 x 640GB WD Blacks that have been running for years now in a horizontal position. Once I get my new storage server in place, I'll flip them on their side and see how it goes

shakeshuck · May 4, 2012

Jizzler said:
I have 4 x 640GB WD Blacks that have been running for years now in a horizontal position. Once I get my new storage server in place, I'll flip them on their side and see how it goes

Yeah, I'd be interested in the outcome of that one. Cheers!

lilhasselhoffer · May 4, 2012

A hard drive is anchored so that the spindle only has 1 degree of freedom, rotation about the axis perpendicular to the faces with the largest area. As such, there is not benefit or disadvantage to running it at any orientation. The anchoring is done by magneto-hydro dynamic bearings, which prevents damage based upon bearing wear and loss of lubricant from the bearings (not to mention this is the only bearing that works well at such a high rate of rotation). As there is only one degree of freedom, gravity's forces are functionally ignorable.

The laymen's terms:
You're good to run a HDD at any orientation. Just make sure that while operating you don't change that orientation abruptly.

theeldest · May 15, 2012

shakeshuck said:
I don't know if it's an old wives' tale, but I was always told HDD orientation didn't matter as long as you didn't change it.

In other words, if you've had it running for a year vertically don't change the mount to horizontal and expect it to complete its predicted lifecycle.

Fact or fiction... who knows?

Hmmm. I also have 4x 640 GB WD hard drives (blue, not black) that were running for 2-3 years in a horizontal setup that are not on their side. (see my main rig).

I've already had 1 die that I had to swap. I guess I'll let you know if any more die? (started with 7 of these drives but I'm only using 4 in my desktop)

AsRock · May 15, 2012

AthlonX2 said:
you would think that having a drive on its side would increase wear on the bearing assembly,i have been running my seagate 7200.11's on there side for a few years now and havent noticed any oddities

I think it does just by how much. I will always keep mine flat due to the fact that it keeps the weight even though out.

The Von Matrices · May 16, 2012

shakeshuck said:
I don't know if it's an old wives' tale, but I was always told HDD orientation didn't matter as long as you didn't change it.

In other words, if you've had it running for a year vertically don't change the mount to horizontal and expect it to complete its predicted lifecycle.

Fact or fiction... who knows?

It mattered for old drives where you had to set the C/H/S. When you formatted the drive, each cylinder would be associated with a certain position of the actuator. But if you formatted the drive in a horizontal position and then moved it into a vertical orientation, gravity would pull the actuator down, positioning it on a different cylinder and reading different data than expected. Modern drives with LBAs correct for the inaccuracy of the actuator positioning and automatically reposition the actuator if it is on the wrong cylinder, which compensates for the effect of gravity,

The Von Matrices · May 16, 2012

Modern drives do not care if they are mounted vertically or horizontally. Think of all the external drives that Seagate and Western Digital manufacture - they are all meant to be used in a vertical orientation.

System Name	Lenovo 17IMH05H
Processor	Core i7 10750H
Video Card(s)	GTX 1660 Ti
Audio Device(s)	SSL2
Software	Windows 10 Pro 22H2
Benchmark Scores	i've got a shitload of them in 15 years of TPU membership

Processor	Intel i5-6600
Motherboard	ASRock H170M-ITX
Cooling	Cooler Master Geminii S524
Memory	G.Skill DDR4-2133 16GB (8GB x 2)
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte R9-380X 4GB
Storage	Samsung 950 EVO 250GB (mSATA)
Display(s)	LG 29UM69G-B 2560x1080 IPS
Case	Lian Li PC-Q25
Audio Device(s)	Realtek ALC892
Power Supply	Seasonic SS-460FL2
Mouse	Logitech G700s
Keyboard	Logitech G110
Software	Windows 10 Pro

Processor	Intel i5-6600
Motherboard	ASRock H170M-ITX
Cooling	Cooler Master Geminii S524
Memory	G.Skill DDR4-2133 16GB (8GB x 2)
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte R9-380X 4GB
Storage	Samsung 950 EVO 250GB (mSATA)
Display(s)	LG 29UM69G-B 2560x1080 IPS
Case	Lian Li PC-Q25
Audio Device(s)	Realtek ALC892
Power Supply	Seasonic SS-460FL2
Mouse	Logitech G700s
Keyboard	Logitech G110
Software	Windows 10 Pro

System Name	Lenovo 17IMH05H
Processor	Core i7 10750H
Video Card(s)	GTX 1660 Ti
Audio Device(s)	SSL2
Software	Windows 10 Pro 22H2
Benchmark Scores	i've got a shitload of them in 15 years of TPU membership

Processor	Intel Core i9 11900K
Motherboard	MSI Z590 Carbon EK X
Cooling	Custom Water
Memory	Team DDR4 4000MHz
Video Card(s)	ASUS TUF RTX 3080 OC
Storage	WD WN850 1TB
Display(s)	43" LG NanoCell 4K 120Hz
Power Supply	Asus Thor 1200w
Mouse	Asus Strix Evolve
Keyboard	Asus Strix Claymore

Placing HDD vertical instead of horizontal

Artas1984

Disparia

DarkOCean

Disparia

Artas1984

Athlon2K15

HyperVtX™

repman244

Artas1984

cadaveca

My name is Dave

Steevo

shakeshuck

New Member

Disparia

shakeshuck

New Member

lilhasselhoffer

theeldest

AsRock

TPU addict

The Von Matrices

The Von Matrices

System Name	Desktop
Processor	Intel Xeon E5-1680v2
Motherboard	ASUS Sabertooth X79
Cooling	Intel AIO
Memory	8x4GB DDR3 1866MHz
Video Card(s)	EVGA GTX 970 SC
Storage	Crucial MX500 1TB + 2x WD RE 4TB HDD
Display(s)	HP ZR24w
Case	Fractal Define XL Black
Audio Device(s)	Schiit Modi Uber/Sony CDP-XA20ES/Pioneer CT-656>Sony TA-F630ESD>Sennheiser HD600
Power Supply	Corsair HX850
Mouse	Logitech G603
Keyboard	Logitech G613
Software	Windows 10 Pro x64

System Name	Compy 386
Processor	7800X3D
Motherboard	Asus
Cooling	Air for now.....
Memory	64 GB DDR5 6400Mhz
Video Card(s)	7900XTX 310 Merc
Storage	Samsung 990 2TB, 2 SP 2TB SSDs, 24TB Enterprise drives
Display(s)	55" Samsung 4K HDR
Audio Device(s)	ATI HDMI
Mouse	Logitech MX518
Keyboard	Razer
Software	A lot.
Benchmark Scores	Its fast. Enough.

System Name	WAZAAM!
Processor	AMD Ryzen 3900x
Motherboard	ASRock Fatal1ty X370 Pro Gaming
Cooling	Kraken x62
Memory	G.Skill 16GB 3200 MHz
Video Card(s)	EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC
Storage	Micron 9200 Max
Display(s)	Samsung 49" 5120x1440 120hz
Case	Corsair 600D
Audio Device(s)	Onboard - Bose Companion 2 Speakers
Power Supply	CORSAIR Professional Series HX850
Keyboard	Corsair K95 RGB
Software	Windows 10 Pro

System Name	My Surround PC
Processor	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
Motherboard	ASUS STRIX X670E-F
Cooling	Swiftech MCP35X / EK Quantum CPU / Alphacool GPU / XSPC 480mm w/ Corsair Fans
Memory	96GB (2 x 48 GB) G.Skill DDR5-6000 CL30
Video Card(s)	MSI NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24GB
Storage	WD SN850 2TB, Samsung PM981a 1TB, 4 x 4TB + 1 x 10TB HGST NAS HDD for Windows Storage Spaces
Display(s)	2 x Viotek GFI27QXA 27" 4K 120Hz + LG UH850 4K 60Hz + HMD
Case	NZXT Source 530
Audio Device(s)	Sony MDR-7506 / Logitech Z-5500 5.1
Power Supply	Corsair RM1000x 1 kW
Mouse	Patriot Viper V560
Keyboard	Corsair K100
VR HMD	HP Reverb G2
Software	Windows 11 Pro x64
Benchmark Scores	Mellanox ConnectX-3 10 Gb/s Fiber Network Card