Does it matter whether the HD is installed upside down or not?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hokey Pokey
  • Start date Start date
H

Hokey Pokey

Is a HD supposed to be stationed such that the plate side is up and
the exposed circuit side is down? Are the spindles and the actuator
arm supposed to work better when it's the plate side up? Any
thoughts? Thanks.
 
Hokey said:
Is a HD supposed to be stationed such that the plate side is up and
the exposed circuit side is down? Are the spindles and the actuator
arm supposed to work better when it's the plate side up? Any
thoughts? Thanks.
Click to expand...

I don't know if it matters or not, but why would you want to install it
upside-down? Any particular reason?
 
Cyde Weys said:
I don't know if it matters or not, but why would you want to install it
upside-down? Any particular reason?
Click to expand...


As far as the HD is concerned, there is no right-side-up nor top-and-
bottom. There is only good air flow and bad air flow. In my Dell
Dimension (circa 1999), the standard secondary HD orientation is
flat horizontal with the faceplate down, and the primary HD orientation
is standing on end.

*TimDaniels*
 
"Hokey Pokey" asked:
Is a HD supposed to be stationed such that the plate side is up and
the exposed circuit side is down? Are the spindles and the actuator
arm supposed to work better when it's the plate side up? Any
thoughts? Thanks.
Click to expand...


I called Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagate with a similar
question a couple months ago. I wanted to know if the HDs had
to be mounted in any particular orientation (i.e. attitude). Tech reps
for all three manufacturers said "No". Two (WD and Seagate) said
that they should only not be "slanted". One (WD or Seagate) said
that the old HDs had to be used in the same orientation as when they
were formatted, but he didn't know if that was still the case for the
newer HDs. I, personally, have formatted my Maxtor DiamondMax
Plus 9s in one orientation and used them in another orientation with
no problems. My personal preference is to have the HDs standing
on end, connectors on top, to maximize convective cooling. And that,
BTW, is the standard orientation in my Dell Dimension PC. And the
secondary HD orientation in that machine is "flat" horizontal with the
HD's circuit card on top, faceplate down. IOW, there is no preferred
"top" or "bottom". What's important is contact with lots of cooling air
flow.

*TimDaniels*
 
I don't know if it matters or not, but why would you want to install it
upside-down? Any particular reason?
Click to expand...

Well, I figured if I can have it laying down on the bottom of the
case, with the plateside down contacting the case, then the heat from
the HD would be dispersed through the bottom of the case. Bad idea?
 
"Hokey Pokey" asked:


I called Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagate with a similar
question a couple months ago. I wanted to know if the HDs had
to be mounted in any particular orientation (i.e. attitude). Tech reps
for all three manufacturers said "No". Two (WD and Seagate) said
that they should only not be "slanted". One (WD or Seagate) said
that the old HDs had to be used in the same orientation as when they
were formatted, but he didn't know if that was still the case for the
newer HDs. I, personally, have formatted my Maxtor DiamondMax
Plus 9s in one orientation and used them in another orientation with
no problems. My personal preference is to have the HDs standing
on end, connectors on top, to maximize convective cooling. And that,
BTW, is the standard orientation in my Dell Dimension PC. And the
secondary HD orientation in that machine is "flat" horizontal with the
HD's circuit card on top, faceplate down. IOW, there is no preferred
"top" or "bottom". What's important is contact with lots of cooling air
flow.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

Tim, thanks so much for your reply. Looks as though my reason for
having asked this question in the first place was a bad one. I
figured if I can have it laying down on the bottom of the case, with
the plateside down contacting the case, then the heat from the HD
would be dispersed through the bottom of the case. Bad idea, I guess?
 
Tim, thanks so much for your reply. Looks as though my reason for
having asked this question in the first place was a bad one. I
figured if I can have it laying down on the bottom of the case, with
the plateside down contacting the case, then the heat from the HD
would be dispersed through the bottom of the case. Bad idea, I guess?
Click to expand...


IF the drive casing were flat enough, it might have a minimal cooling
benefit, but then again so does mounting in a traditional cage with the
sides contacting the cage. Either way the airflow is more significant,
with sufficient airflow the HDD is not needing any special heatsinking
measures.
 
Timothy Daniels said:
"Hokey Pokey" asked:


I called Maxtor, Western Digital, and Seagate with a similar
question a couple months ago. I wanted to know if the HDs had
to be mounted in any particular orientation (i.e. attitude). Tech reps
for all three manufacturers said "No". Two (WD and Seagate) said
that they should only not be "slanted". One (WD or Seagate) said
that the old HDs had to be used in the same orientation as when they
were formatted, but he didn't know if that was still the case for the
newer HDs.
Click to expand...
<snip>

That was supposedly true for the old MFM drives...
any present day drive may be used in any position
but i doubt that mounting to to the bottom of the case would do much to help
the cooling.
I would not like to mount a drive upside down on the bottom of the case...
i think it would be too easy for something to fall onto the circuitry and
damage the drive
 
Older hard drives use stepper motors (very long time ago). Due to usage
(wearing?), temperature and some other factores, perhaps gravity) the
stepper motors don't maintain their exact postion (over time). Reformatting
rewrites the postioning parts of the tracks.
Today's hard drives (a quite long time, actually), use more sophisticated
servo's that determine their postion and can compenstate for temperature,
wearing and gravity. So new hard drives, ones that still work today, should
have no problems with orientation.

About heat, when you have many disks in you system, simply mounting a fan
close to the hard disks, so air moves arround is usually sufficient. I had a
mini-tower packed with 3 hdds, 1 cd and a processor. Due to the heat the
disks sometimes turned themselves off (or malfunctioned). This was solved by
just placing a fan in the case below the disks blowing air away from the
disk. This dicipated enough heat to keep them running reliable (these are
1.6GB and 2GB WD HDDs. All three still work fine).
The issue is that todays disks get hotter (they get real warm). Just get
your hands on an old PSU and rip the fan out. Place it next to the disk
(below...) and it will keep cool enough, anytime. Without the disk should
still run reliable for a very long time. I would consider a fan when the
case gets every hot or the disks stops working...
 
Is a HD supposed to be stationed such that the plate side is up and
the exposed circuit side is down? Are the spindles and the actuator
arm supposed to work better when it's the plate side up? Any
thoughts? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Drives can be mounted in either position, in any position with drive
horizontal or vertical. However it wasn't too long ago the spec sheets of
some (I forget specific models at the moment) mentioned keeping the drivew
within 3-5 degrees of aligned with that horizontal or vertical axis....
usually referred to as "tilted".

There was a time when I suspected that non-horizontal mounting (plane of
platters parallel to horizontal) somewhat increased bearing wear and more
rapidly increased the high-pitched whining noise of ball-bearing drives,
but I don't have a statistically significant sample of (same
drives/age/environment) to make a fair comparison.
 
...The issue is that todays disks get hotter (they get real warm)...
Click to expand...

Affirmative on that. My old 5400rpm 33MBps Maxtor didn't
seem to get warmer than room temp, but my 7200rpm 133MBps
DiamondMax Plus 9s get up to body temp, maybe a little highter.
I can feel the warmer spots as being the platter bearings and the
large ICs on the circuit card. The warm bearing I attribute to the
higher rpm and the magneto-fluidic bearing medium, and the
warmer ICs to the higher data rate. Interestingly, the edges of
the HD case don't get as warm as those two other areas. I'm
of the opinion that cooling through the edges via contact with
the drive bay doesn't do much.

*TimDaniels*
 
On Wednesday, Joris wrote:

Just get your hands on an old PSU and rip the fan out.
Place it next to the disk (below...) and it will keep
cool enough, anytime.
Click to expand...

Any web sites with walk-throughs/howto's on this? I have
a 12V fan from an old PSU that I can use to cool my two
Maxtor drives....but haven't a clue about how to go about
it.

<lurk>
 
On Wednesday, Joris wrote:



Any web sites with walk-throughs/howto's on this? I have
a 12V fan from an old PSU that I can use to cool my two
Maxtor drives....but haven't a clue about how to go about
it.

<lurk>
Click to expand...

It'd be on a case-by-case basis. Some have the room in front of the bay
for a fan, while others room under the bay (if that bay is open at the
bottom) or someone with only one drive might be able to squeeze a fan into
the bay right below the drive if it's mounted in the top of the bay...
just depends on how your case is laid out.

IMHO, the best solution is still the one found on most cases, to have the
bay near the bottom of the case, and the fan mounted on the front case
wall, sucking in external air and blowing though the drives... though of
course you need at least 1cm or so between drives to let the air flow
through. Some cases reduce the effectiveness of this design by allowing
too much of the airflow to go around the drives, the best implementations
force ALL the air through the bay, between the drives... maximizing the
effectiveness of this airflow allows using a very low RPM, inaudible fan.

Power supply fans are potentially as good as any other source (depending
on the particular fan) but typically require more work or $, like a fan
adapter and/or changing the plug, since almost no PSU fans start out with
a compatible plug on them. For the cost of the adapter, plug, the time
spent, and also considering that you're starting out with a used, somewhat
worn fan, it's often best to just buy the exact fan you want/need the next
time it's convenient.
 
Well, I figured if I can have it laying down on the bottom of the
case, with the plateside down contacting the case, then the heat from
the HD would be dispersed through the bottom of the case. Bad idea?
Click to expand...

Yes...bad idea.

The drive should be mounted so that the electronics is facing
down...in order to protect that area.

Also, the bottom of the drive should have enough space under it to
allow air to freely circulate around it. Even when mounting in a bay,
its always best to mount it high enough above a full-bottom bay so
that the air can circulate under it.

Make sure you use the proper size screws...and don't over tighten.



Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
Trent© said:
Yes...bad idea.

The drive should be mounted so that the electronics is facing
down...in order to protect that area.
Click to expand...


Protect "that area" from what? And why? And why does Dell
not do that?

*TimDaniels*
 
Protect "that area" from what?
Click to expand...

Settling dust. Actually...almost anything that could be drawn
downward due to gravity.
And why?
Click to expand...

To prevent damage to the drive.
And why does Dell
not do that?
Click to expand...

Don't know, Tim. You'll hafta ask them.


Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
"Trent©" theorized:
"Timothy Daniels" asked:


Settling dust. Actually...almost anything that could be drawn
downward due to gravity.


To prevent damage to the drive.
Click to expand...


The drive is hermetically sealed. Dust can't get in.

*TimDaniels*
 
"Trent©" theorized:


The drive is hermetically sealed. Dust can't get in.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

Some drives are completely sealed...some aren't.

There are many drives where the electronics on the bottom of the drive
is exposed. And some are completely sealed...where the electronics
are not exposed.

Of course, the platters are always sealed.


Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!
 
Trent© said:
Some drives are completely sealed...some aren't.

There are many drives where the electronics on the
bottom of the drive is exposed. And some are
completely sealed...where the electronics
are not exposed.

Of course, the platters are always sealed.
Click to expand...


So dust will hurt the hard drive's "electronics",
but it's OK for dust to settle on the motherboard's
"electronics", on all the add-in cards' "electronics",
on the power supply's "electronics"? Why is the
HD's "electronics" so much more sensitive to dust?
And after you answer that, tell us why HDs aren't
made with an engraving somewhere saying
"This Side Up"?

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy said:
So dust will hurt the hard drive's "electronics",
but it's OK for dust to settle on the motherboard's
"electronics", on all the add-in cards' "electronics",
on the power supply's "electronics"? Why is the
HD's "electronics" so much more sensitive to dust?
And after you answer that, tell us why HDs aren't
made with an engraving somewhere saying
"This Side Up"?
Click to expand...

Drive control boards tend to have printed circuitry and other
exposed points on them. The signals and power on these can be
disturbed by connection to other points via such conductive things
as paper clips, aluminum foil, nuts, bolts, etc. If that PC board
surface faces down the time of contact of such foreign objects is
normally minimized, due to the effect of gravity.
 
Back
Top