Hard Drives question: Something I thought about around 20 years ago just popped up in my head. It concerns hard drives. Does it really matter if a hard drive is horizontal or vertical...

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Something I thought about around 20 years ago just popped up in my head. It concerns hard drives.

Does it really matter if a hard drive is horizontal or vertical when in use?

In other words, do the bearings and drive in general last longer standing up or laying flat and why do you feel that way?

A question for the curious!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

No, orientation does not matter, as long as they remain stable in that orientation.
They just don't like to be moved (jostled or rotated) while running.
(They get a gyroscopic effect.)
In my external drive dock they stand connectors down.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

You're worrying about a question that is becoming a thing of the past, like floppy disks and dodo birds .... Solid-State Drives (SSD) have no moving mechanical components.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

CHG_CANON wrote:

You're worrying about a question that is becoming a thing of the past, like floppy disks and dodo birds .... Solid-State Drives (SSD) have no moving mechanical components.

SSDs can be jostled as much as you want.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

To respond to two previous answers.... hard drives are not dead and buried. If you think they will disappear anytime soon you are mistaken.
The answer to the OP's QUESTION is...No, hard drive orientation doesn't matter. Keeping them still is the only consideration.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

CHG_CANON wrote:

You're worrying about a question that is becoming a thing of the past, like floppy disks and dodo birds .... Solid-State Drives (SSD) have no moving mechanical components.

True on the solid state ones but I said hard drives. Those still spin around.

Besides, a very large ssd is presently way beyond my pocketbook. I'm talking 4Tb drives.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

GENorkus wrote:

Something I thought about around 20 years ago just popped up in my head. It concerns hard drives.

Does it really matter if a hard drive is horizontal or vertical when in use?

In other words, do the bearings and drive in general last longer standing up or laying flat and why do you feel that way?

A question for the curious!

Many moons ago, I recall an IBM XT sitting flat on a desk at work, it worked fine for years, the user cleared off the desk one day and placed the XT in a stand on the floor on its side to save room. I was called because it no longer would boot up, the hard drive showed it was unreadable. Placing the unit back on the desk horizontally resoved the boot up question. Seems that gravity does have an effect on wearing bearings, in a vertical position the drive plates were no longer in the same position, changing to horizontal again put the plates back into the position they had worn into apparently.

Of course this was a much different drive then those today - probably an old MFM drive, probably with many hundreds of dollars with at least 10 megabytes of storage space :)

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Dngallagher wrote:

Many moons ago, I recall an IBM XT sitting flat on... (show quote)

Gravity has no effect on positioning of components in a hard drive...platters or heads. "Maybe" bearings can wear in such a way that changing position could upset things, but worn bearings would cause problems even without changing position.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

nadelewitz wrote:

Gravity has no effect on positioning of components in a hard drive...platters or heads. "Maybe" bearings can wear in such a way that changing position could upset things, but worn bearings would cause problems even without changing position.

Of course gravity has no effect on positioning of components, but after years of spinning with gravity forces in one direction, to now place a device in a position that changes, even slightly, the forces being applied in a different direction could surely magnify the effect due to particular bearing wear.

BTW - drive continued to function for a long time afterwards with no issues, the state was slow at replacing/updating technology.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

nadelewitz wrote:

Gravity has no effect on positioning of components in a hard drive...platters or heads. "Maybe" bearings can wear in such a way that changing position could upset things, but worn bearings would cause problems even without changing position.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

Dngallagher wrote:

Many moons ago, I recall an IBM XT sitting flat on... (show quote)

Thank you. Yours, and the next few responces are what a had suspicions on.

Basicall leave it in one position.

repleo Loc: Boston

CHG_CANON wrote:

You're worrying about a question that is becoming a thing of the past, like floppy disks and dodo birds .... Solid-State Drives (SSD) have no moving mechanical components.

I just put a 1 TB SSD (Western Digital - $150 @ Best Buy) into a six year old laptop that was on its last legs. It completely transformed the machine. I highly recommend it as an upgrade for anybody with a marginal machine.
OK - This may be off topic, but the OP's question has already been answered.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

repleo wrote:

I just put a 1 TB SSD (Western Digital - $150 @ Best Buy) into a six year old laptop that was on its last legs. It completely transformed the machine. I highly recommend it as an upgrade for anybody with a marginal machine.
OK - This may be off topic, but the OP's question has already been answered.

Yep, the ssd's are fast! Got an Intel 500ssd in my desktop right now. The hard drive question was concerning a couple 4tb backup drives I have.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Modern HDs use air bearings on the spindles and are not subject to the same nature of failures as the old lubricated bearings, BUT, while I haven’t read a technical data sheet or an HD in awhile, the majority of manufacturers said that horizontal or vertical was fine, but NOT upside down. Of course, as has been mentioned, SSDs (which is all I currently use) don’t have any positional issues.

Harry0 Loc: Gardena, Cal

I was an IT Tech, even in the XT days. I had special grease for Seagate HDD bearings.
Anybody else dance to the Seagate Slam?
That XT guy may have knocked it out of "Park" position.
I was always informed that the drives could be horizontal or vertical, or even upside down. Like the early Compaqs, to save space. But not at any other angle. Using them off kilter (30 or 45 degrees) would hamper. and sometimes wear, those bearings. When some OEMs were using cConner drives they were always seen upside down. Maybe that;s why they were so noisy?