ROTS Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 In general, which way? I have three mini-computers. One is newer. The other two are late 1990's ME/98/XP models. In all three of these computers, the hard drive is upside down, why? SHouldn't the drive be right side up?From my undertanding of Hard drives, some people under insane circumstances ( which should never be done) will place a hard drive in the freezer to make ( something forget the name ) pop, so it can be read???? So rather then let In general I just want to know why all of these computers have the hard drive upside down? Two 30 Gigers One 400 GigerWhy are they upside down?1. Does the company do this on purpose because it will wear down, faster, and force the buyer to get a new computer ?2. Is it a better position for the drive, so why not all hard drives built after the 1990's. The Apple Power macs all have their drives upside right ?...............................This is something I just remember, I think the hard drives in two labtops I got a hold of, are also upside down???Why, why is it like that ???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 In general, which way? I have three mini-computers. One is newer. The other two are late 1990's ME/98/XP models. In all three of these computers, the hard drive is upside down, why? SHouldn't the drive be right side up?Do those mini PC's sport 4 little circular/cylindrical pieces of rubber on the top (one near each corner)? Seriously now, maybe they have been poorly or wrongly assembled by mistake, it is uncommon that a disk is not mounted in such a way that it is:horizontalwith the label on the top side (and the PCB on the lower side)but see below, it is entirely possible.In "all in ones" the disk is generally mounted vertical, with the label facing outwards.It's several years that the disk drive manufacturer "allow" mounting disks "every which way you can", so no, it's not an evil plan to have those drives have a shorter life.http://www.howtogeek.com/128397/does-hard-drive-orientation-affect-its-lifespan/On most laptops they are mounted "the right way", but there are more than a few that have them "upside down".I presume that the decision is made at design time depending on the expected airflow in the case.Can you provide make/model of those PC's and laptops?jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 Diagonally, of course! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phaenius Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 I bet no one beats me. Some years ago (don't do it anymore, now I am a good boy), I had a HDD suspended by the wires. And it just stood like that and worked like charm. I mean it was hanged by the wires, with nothing else to support it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dencorso Posted June 19, 2013 Share Posted June 19, 2013 Attaboy! That's the way to do it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tripredacus Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 I bet no one beats me. Some years ago (don't do it anymore, now I am a good boy), I had a HDD suspended by the wires. And it just stood like that and worked like charm. I mean it was hanged by the wires, with nothing else to support it.I have no picture proof, but an old friend had built a mini PC where the hard drive was held entirely by about a dozen rubber bands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bonestonne Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 Antec had cases that offered it a while ago, not sure if they still do, as many sport just rubber grommets for dampening.Upside down vs Right side up really doesn't make much of a difference in terms of life span. Neither does vertical vs horizontal. Think of it like laptops. They don't all face the same way because it doesn't really affect them. As long as they aren't in a place where they get too much heat they're totally okay. Drive failure is due to heat or violent shock due to dropping, hitting, putting down too hard, etc. All in ones are no exception to this. They typically have drives fail due to the massive amount of heat more than anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
submix8c Posted June 20, 2013 Share Posted June 20, 2013 (edited) All kidding aside, maybe it depends on whether you're in the northern hemisphere or southern, kind of like the old reverse-toilet-flush thingy. http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp I also sleep with my head to the West so the blood rushes to my head to "invigorate my brain"...OR... the HDD "spin" is like a gyroscope and position is irrelevant? Edited June 20, 2013 by submix8c Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tripredacus Posted June 21, 2013 Share Posted June 21, 2013 Think of it like laptops. They don't all face the same way because it doesn't really affect them. Notebooks are totally a different subject I think. Look at the quote from the article jaclaz posted:At one time (long ago) manufactures advised against changing the orientation of a drive without reformatting it. This was due to the heads being affected by gravity and becoming misaligned with respect to the data. I have not seen such a notice in quite some time.Of course, notebooks are changing their orientation multiple times a day. Put on desk, put in bag, toss in car or bike, bounce around, etc. I won't even want to bring up the fact that so many people drop their notebooks... Was it at some point that notebook hard drives had some technology that allowed it to withstand moving about so much? If so, wouldn't it make sense that desktop hard disks might have gotten some of those advantages at some point, which is why they don't talk about needing to reformat before changing how your HDD is positioned? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted June 21, 2013 Share Posted June 21, 2013 Diagonally, of course! Don't try to be smart , the one in the photo is obviously the prototype of the hard disk drive support designed by Galileo Galilei in 1633 .The project started in 1632 to transform the tower of Pisa into a data farm is little known :(the idea was to use the wind going through the arches to cool the servers )But hard disks manufactured before around 1700 needed to stay horizontal, hence the need for the inclined support....jaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asp Posted June 25, 2013 Share Posted June 25, 2013 (edited) [Was it at some point that notebook hard drives had some technology that allowed it to withstand moving about so much? If so, wouldn't it make sense that desktop hard disks might have gotten some of those advantages at some point, which is why they don't talk about needing to reformat before changing how your HDD is positioned? Some laptops had an accelerometers that detected if the laptop was falling, and immediately parked the hard disk heads to reduce the risk of a head crash. has articles about various drive suspension methods, like this one using home made bungee cords.However, reducing sound conduction can also increase heat, as the drives aren't directly in contact with the metal case. Edited June 25, 2013 by Asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pointertovoid Posted June 26, 2013 Share Posted June 26, 2013 Fun answers... Samsung's disk manual stated "any position is good".Google's (they're the biggest user) report on observed drive reliability tells that heat is no drawback to disk life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaclaz Posted June 26, 2013 Share Posted June 26, 2013 Google's (they're the biggest user) report on observed drive reliability tells that heat is no drawback to disk life.Is there a new report out? The old one doesn't say exactly that.It says that they found no correlation (but the report is from 2005-2006 - newer hard disks are much "hotter" that before - and their disk base is/was "obviously" kept at reasonable temperatures).http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdfjaclaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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