Thread: Hard Drive Mounting

Heh, anything to do with harddrives is one big argument. The theory behind verticle mounting is that it will prevent a head crash in case of a LARGE shock, but many people (inc myself now *knocks on wood*) have had no problems running them horizontally.

Most of the severe jarring in a car is up and down force from bumps. Mounting a drive horizontally can cause the head to actually move up and down over the platter and it could come in contact with the platter scratching and ruining it.

Mounting the drive vertically will keep the head from crashing into the platter, but now the severe bump force of the car will move the head left to right over the platter and lose tracking (like when a cd skips), either crashing your computer or causing major delays.

I would mount the drive vertically and see if you have any problems. If so, go horizontally.

I have my drive mounted horizontally because of the tracking problem. I have the HD mounted solidly to the pc. The pc sits on top of some foam rubber and is held down with a bungee cord for a little shock protection. All behind a cosmetic panel becouse its kind of ugly. The same HD (A WD 5400rmp 30G) has been in and out of my car the last 3 years mounted mostly horizontally. It still works but it acts up sometimes and fails the WD diagnostic test thing for some reason (bad sectors I guess).

mike

think of it this way.. ALL notebooks have their hd mounted horizontally.. no problems right?

just dont grab your briefcase and play merry go round.

[derail]how about diagnolly?[/derail]

this thread has covered the major points other than the belief by some folks that laptop drives are better suited to the motion of a car install.

I happen to think a desktop drive works just fine. Mine is mounted horizontal with no difficulties with years of use.

Install it how you like see if it works for you.

Originally posted by samc
think of it this way.. ALL notebooks have their hd mounted horizontally.. no problems right?

just dont grab your briefcase and play merry go round.

Of course, how often is a notebook continually in use in a hostile environment....Most spend their time on a desk, or in transit (turned off).

Also, FYI that anyone working in a computer store knows how common notebook HD replacements are.

im planning a build and am wondering about hard drive mounting

has anyone every tried suspending the hard drive with bungee cable or the like? would this do much?

http://www.dansdata.com/novibes.htm
that kind of setup is similar to what im thinking

FWIW. I have a laptop drive in mine and it survived PA roads, the constant bump,bump,bump of the 10' sections of their highway. You know when you see a spot on tv that shows people in side a car so the actors are just slighting bounging up and down on the seats to simulate motion, PA roads are like that.
Also from hss spec sheets, hdds are to be mounted horizontally or vertically, but not somehing in between (diagonal). I have found that hittign something is worse for the hdd than it bounding around. I have carried running laptops with no problems, but dropped on just a couple inches above the desktop and the hdd stopped and had to remap around bad sectores.

Originally posted by aoLhaTer
im planning a build and am wondering about hard drive mounting
has anyone every tried suspending the hard drive with bungee cable or the like? would this do much?

Sure, it would do plenty. In fact, it would kill the drive. Shock mounting causes more problems then it solves.