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From: grr@unirot.UUCP (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: sideways hard disks
Message-ID: <251@unirot.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Dec-85 17:02:39 EST
Article-I.D.: unirot.251
Posted: Wed Dec 18 17:02:39 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Dec-85 05:33:23 EST
References: <785@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: grr@unirot.UUCP (George Robbins)
Organization: The Soup Kitchen, Piscataway NJ
Lines: 31
Summary: sideways is ok, upside down is a no-no...

In article <785@brl-tgr.ARPA> HEWETT@sumex-aim.arpa (Mike Hewett) writes:
>Given the distance between the head and the disk in state-of-the-art
>hard disk drives, I'm *certain* that the manufacturers do not count
>on gravity to maintain the distance.

so far so good...

                                       If so, then a hard disk 
>manufactured near the equator would probably not work in North
>America because of differences in the force of gravity.

sorry, the difference is negligible!

>So, although I'm not an expert, I would say that running a hard
>disk sideways or even upside-down should work okay.

**** WARNING ****

Many drives are spec'd to work in any orientation EXCEPT upside-down.
The important factor is not the head loading, but the design of the
bearings for the spindle.  Running a drive upside-down may not destroy
it, but I wouldn't recommend trying it on a drive you depend on.

Also, please note that the bearing are fairly fragile and may be supporting
a rather heavy mass.  Sharp impacts are as likely to screw up the bearings
as they are to crash the heads.

-- 
George Robbins			uucp:	{unirot|tapa}!grr
P.O. Box 177
Lincoln U, PA  19352	[Any ideas herein are not responsible for themselves!]