un horizontal hard drive question !

anyone knows what happens if a hard drive is not horizontal?

or what happens if a hard drive is on its side?

also would a hard drive work if it was upside down?

would its reliability improve as the head cannot crash on to the platters as it is upside down?

also would a upside hard drive not have a head crash because it is upside down?


would a upside down hard drive last longer than a horizontal hard drive?

reply to post by beckybecky


To be honest the entire contraption is self-contained so should be able to be used whichever way that floats your boat, Hell dangle in from a ceiling inside an external hard-drive case, should still work fine

reply to post by beckybecky


Inside a hard drive you find several disks, stacked over each other.

As each disk as two sides, each disk has two heads, so when you have a disk in a horizontal position, half of its heads are upside down.

If you think that some computers can be used in a horizontal or in a vertical position you can see that it must not make a difference.

If the heads relied just on gravity they would be too unreliable to use.

Originally posted by beckybecky
anyone knows what happens if a hard drive is not horizontal?

or what happens if a hard drive is on its side?

also would a hard drive work if it was upside down?

would its reliability improve as the head cannot crash on to the platters as it is upside down?

also would a upside hard drive not have a head crash because it is upside down?


would a upside down hard drive last longer than a horizontal hard drive?

Ok. Modern hard drives will operate in any orientation. They guarantee them in all six axis - I guess you could quibble that if it were canted it would not be in an orthogonal position, but I've never seen it be an issue. By the book, any of the six orthogonal orientations are acceptable - any side down, right side up, or upside down.

Next, the heads don't rest on the platters by gravity. They're sort of spring loaded to rest on the drive platter, and you've got heads both above and below - think of pinching a cd with your fingers. So right side up or upside down, you've got heads on both sides.

The idea is that as the platter spins, the head is lofted to the correct distance by air pressure. The drive mechanism unloads the heads from the platter when the power's off. If you give the drive notice you're about to turn it off, it'll move the heads to a safe zone and unload the heads. If you just cut off the power, the drive electronics will turn the spinning platter into a little generator to provide enough power to do an emergency retraction (it sounds different). This smacks the head assembly into the safety stop, and can break it. Drives are often rated by the number of emergency retractions you can safely do, and it's kept track of by the drive and returned in the SMART data block as "power off retract count".

I've got both types of external drives (2 of each configuration) & never had a problem with either over the past few years.

As long as you don't move or bang it, then you'll be fine!

Originally posted by Bedlam
Drives are often rated by the number of emergency retractions you can safely do, and it's kept track of by the drive and returned in the SMART data block as "power off retract count".

Thanks, I knew the orientation didn't matter, but I didn't know about the "power off retract count", so thanks for teaching me something!

I guess that's one more reason to use a UPS, so you don't lose power.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Not only that, a UPS also works as a protection against power surges, one of the worst things that can happen to an electronic device.

reply to post by ArMaP
That's true, even some inexpensive surge protectors offer some level of surge protection though not as good as a UPS, but I even have my stereo plugged into a surge protection power strip, I use those everywhere I plug in electronics. I don't have a UPS for my stereo though, just my computer.

reply to post by Bedlam



If the drive is vertical than the heads will pull against gravity going up and accelerate downwards fall down when going down.this could result in data misalignment or loss as the heads are subject to uneven forces.

but any dust on the platters would fall of the platters.perhaps hard drives could be made to last longer by placing the hard drive on its side everyday for a hour then placing it horizontally.

reply to post by beckybecky
I think Bedlam is right and you're wrong, unless you have a credible source to convince us that your answer is credible.

Here are some seagate hard drives and they don't state any preferred orientation:

seagateexternalharddrives.org...

I think of the head operation somewhat like windshield wipers. Even if you pushed your car over on its side, gravity would have little effect on the operation of the car's windshield wipers, just as it has little effect on the operation of hard drive heads.

Yes, you can set them any which way you want. I often take a HD from a customer's PC and hook it to my MB for a full erare job, being as my PC is way faster then theirs, and I have not ever had a problem. Some desktops mount them upside down. Just saw one a few days ago, A Dell I think, maybe a HP.

Just don't move it while its on, most new laptop drives lock the head when motion s detected.

But yes, you can place it any way you want.

the heads are kept in place by magnets. As long as you don't bang, drop or jolt them around in any way to displace the magnets and/or heads, they work. That means left right, horizontal vertical, angled whatever, they still work.

any modern pc you can turn the entire tower any way you want and it still works.

I've heard in the past that a vertical drive will not last as long. Seems that's an untruth these days, due to advances. I don't think it should be set upsidedown as asked, but rather set how your computer case has room. That way the fans can operate properly, etc. One of my older computers has a vertical drive and still starts up.

Originally posted by SlasherOfVeils
any modern pc you can turn the entire tower any way you want and it still works.

The hard drives are insensitive to orientation, but that's not true for some case fans, if they use a sleeve bearing. The sleeve bearing will still work in any orientation for a while, but it has a shorter life in the vertical position compared to the horizontal position. Better bearings like the ones used in hard drives, and better case fans, aren't sensitive to orientation.