Harddrive upside down - bad idea?

  • Thread starter Thread starter DanielEKFA
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DanielEKFA

Hey there :)

I'm building my own ultraslim case for an old PII that I want to use as a
webserver with Vectorlinux or Slackware. I'm thinking about screwing the
harddrive onto the "lid" of the case, effectively turning it upside down. I
don't know a lot about how a harddrive is built internally, so I'm not sure
if it's a good idea at all. Like if gravity helps out with something
inside, if I might damage the disk, or if performance is decreased (the
latter probably not a big issue since it's an old PII with UDMA33, so it'd
be running slower in the first place). The harddrive is a 120GB Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 9.

TIA,
Daniel
 
DanielEKFA said:
Hey there :)

I'm building my own ultraslim case for an old PII that I want to use as a
webserver with Vectorlinux or Slackware. I'm thinking about screwing the
harddrive onto the "lid" of the case, effectively turning it upside down.
I don't know a lot about how a harddrive is built internally, so I'm not
sure if it's a good idea at all. Like if gravity helps out with something
inside, if I might damage the disk, or if performance is decreased (the
latter probably not a big issue since it's an old PII with UDMA33, so it'd
be running slower in the first place). The harddrive is a 120GB Maxtor
DiamondMax Plus 9.
Click to expand...

Find the installation manual for the drive (if it's not on the Maxtor site
somewhere give them a call)--it will tell the allowed orientations.

That said, it's been a long time since I've seen a drive that had any major
restrictions on orientation--at one time upside down was forbidden for some
drives but that is in general no longer the case, although there may be
specific exceptions.
 
J. Clarke said:
Find the installation manual for the drive (if it's not on the Maxtor site
somewhere give them a call)--it will tell the allowed orientations.

That said, it's been a long time since I've seen a drive that had any
major restrictions on orientation--at one time upside down was forbidden
for some drives but that is in general no longer the case, although there
may be specific exceptions.
Click to expand...

Funny, I would have never thought there'd be a manual for a harddrive,
lol :D But indeed there was, and it states that the drive can be oriented
any which way I please, but that normal orientation is with the PCB facing
down. So that's good news! :) Thanks alot for your reply and the tip :)
 
DanielEKFA said:
Funny, I would have never thought there'd be a manual for
a harddrive, lol :D But indeed there was, and it states
that the drive can be oriented any which way I please,
but that normal orientation is with the PCB facing
down. So that's good news! :)
Click to expand...


As you've found, there is no "upside down" for a modern
hard drive. The most constraint that I was able to elicit from
the major drive manufacturers was not to mount the drive
"at an angle" and to mount it firmly. But if you mount the
drive on the "lid" of a slimline case as you describe, your
problem may be with cooling. Make sure there is a cooling
flow of air over the drive or it may suffer accelerated aging.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy said:
As you've found, there is no "upside down" for a modern
hard drive. The most constraint that I was able to elicit from
the major drive manufacturers was not to mount the drive
"at an angle" and to mount it firmly. But if you mount the
drive on the "lid" of a slimline case as you describe, your
problem may be with cooling. Make sure there is a cooling
flow of air over the drive or it may suffer accelerated aging.

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

The lid is going to perforated aluminum, like the G5 computer's front, so I
think it's gonna be okay? There won't be a fan anywhere though (except for
the cpu), I'm kinda counting on the heat to just dissipate up through the
holes :)
 
DanielEKFA said:
The lid is going to perforated aluminum, like the G5
computer's front, so I think it's gonna be okay? There
won't be a fan anywhere though (except for the cpu),
I'm kinda counting on the heat to just dissipate up
through the holes :)
Click to expand...


I also run a couple Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9s,
but they're kept in a steady flow of air, and their temps
approximate body temp (~37deg C.), which is fine.
But to depend only on convection.... well.... To be
safe, enable S.M.A.R.T. for awhile to check out how
the temps are running. (Sorry, I can't give details on
S.M.A.R.T. since my BIOS doesn't support it.)

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy said:
I also run a couple Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 9s,
but they're kept in a steady flow of air, and their temps
approximate body temp (~37deg C.), which is fine.
But to depend only on convection.... well.... To be
safe, enable S.M.A.R.T. for awhile to check out how
the temps are running. (Sorry, I can't give details on
S.M.A.R.T. since my BIOS doesn't support it.)
Click to expand...

Will do. This old PII amazed me with built-in audio (with SPDIF in/out) &
video, and usb, and yes - S.M.A.R.T. too! So I have it enabled. I'll also
make sure to do the old touch-and-fell on it once in a while. Actually, I
just had the machine running all night doing updates and stuff (all the
parts just lying on a chair with cables everywhere :), and this morning the
drive was only lukewarm. Granted, inside the case the dissipation might be
less, but it looks promising :)
 
DanielEKFA said:
This old PII amazed me with built-in audio (with SPDIF in/out) &
video, and usb, and yes - S.M.A.R.T. too! So I have it enabled.
I'll also make sure to do the old touch-and-fell on it once in a while.
Actually, I just had the machine running all night doing updates
and stuff (all the parts just lying on a chair with cables everywhere :),
and this morning the drive was only lukewarm. Granted, inside the
case the dissipation might be less, but it looks promising :)
Click to expand...


Let us know how it works out, temperature wise, after a defrag
or a partition copy.

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy said:
Let us know how it works out, temperature wise, after a defrag
or a partition copy.
Click to expand...

It's ReiserFS on Logical Volume Management, so there's no defragging. I'll
have to wait until I have some kind of real case put together before I can
test it for real though.
 
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