Is it okay to mount HDDs diagonally?

[phongle123]

Hi, I know it's okay to have them vertical or horizontal but what about diagonally?

[knightslugger]

yes. perfectly fine. should probably try to get some air flow in there though.

[Votivee]

3 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

yes. perfectly fine. should probably try to get some air flow in there though.

He has a noctua to the right of them

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, Votivee said:

He has a noctua to the right of them

How much of that air do you think is actually getting past that first drive

[Himommies]

1 minute ago, Votivee said:

He has a noctua to the right of them

how does that help

[DrMacintosh]

The disks are balanced internally so no matter what way you spin them nothing bad should happen. 

 

Just don't drop one while it is spinning  

[AresKrieger]

Ummm I would not do that personally the HDD could start turning in an unbalance manner potentially leading to failure, its not an absolute requirement but almost all manufacturers recommend a 90 degree variant so horizontal or vertical

[aisle9]

3 minutes ago, dizmo said:

How much of that air do you think is actually getting past that first drive

26.4%

[Egg-Roll]

1 hour ago, dizmo said:

How much of that air do you think is actually getting past that first drive

I was actually looking for a fan between the drives when they said that, not noticing the fan in front of the first drive... I guess my stupid brain mistook it as a part of the bed...

 

Bad brain, bad.

 

Tho the first and last fan should be cooled adequately because of the fan and water cooling.

[seagate_surfer]

Just to add a storage manufacturer's perspective: The orientation of the drives shouldn't matter, what matters is that they're not moved during use. See our Knowledge Base article:

HDD Orientation

[Christophe Corazza]

17 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

Just don't drop one while it is spinning

 

I would say: don’t drop them at all...

Regardless if they are spinning or not ;-)

 

From experience, I came to the peculiar conclusion that they don’t like that :-D

[phongle123]

1 hour ago, Christophe Corazza said:

 

I would say: don’t drop them at all...

Regardless if they are spinning or not ;-)

 

From experience, I came to the peculiar conclusion that they don’t like that :-D

I dropped them quite a few time from about 4 inches up while assembling. I decided to take out 1 drive and mount them horizontally for airflow. But that also blocks off air moving upwards. 

[Christophe Corazza]

2 hours ago, phongle123 said:

I dropped them quite a few time from about 4 inches up while assembling.

And they’re still alive? You must have some damn tough drives! And some big balls to have the courage to still use those drives for important data :-D