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From: dean@ruby.berkeley.edu
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Hard disk shutoff
Message-ID: <1480@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Mon, 20-Oct-86 00:20:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: jade.1480
Posted: Mon Oct 20 00:20:14 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 22:50:47 EDT
References: <12068@watnot.UUCP> <897@nicmad.UUCP> <644@chinet.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: dean@ruby.berkeley.edu. (N. Dean Pentcheff)
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Organization: University of California, Berkeley   Department of Zoology
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Summary: What about disks on their sides? And what about people who know?

In article <644@chinet.UUCP> randy@chinet.UUCP (Randy Suess) writes:
>...  I believe the general opinion is that
>hard disks like to run, and spinning them up and down is what leads to
>failures.

And, in general, that seems to be the consensus gathering on this topic.

BUT:	1) What about drives on their sides?  I assume disk drives are
	   designed to be run horizontally.  Do you get problems due to
	   the one-sided weight distribution?
	2) Are there any disk drive engineers listening?  You guys know
	   what's up.  What are your design objectives?  Are disks
	   designed such that it's better for them to spin indefinitely
	   rather than being turned on and off?  Is it the same story
	   for 10Mb disks as it is for 80Mb disks, or are the design
	   considerations different?

Thanks.

-Dean   (dean@ruby.berkeley.edu)