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From: mlinar@poisson.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Hard Drive Lifespans
Message-ID: <4627@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: Mon, 5-Oct-87 23:26:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: oberon.4627
Posted: Mon Oct  5 23:26:07 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Oct-87 01:49:21 EDT
References: <1623@ukecc.engr.uky.edu>
Sender: nobody@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: mlinar@poisson.usc.edu (Mitch Mlinar)
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 36
Keywords: Bearings divot life wearout

In article <1623@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> dsrich@engr.uky.edu (Dave Richardson) writes:
>
></\/\+/\/\+/\/\>   <--barbed wire for line-eater digestion.
>
>Okay, I've heard a lot about hard drive lifespan, but nobody has mentioned
>whether how the PC is mounted effects the disk drive, so I'll ask:
>
>Does the position of the drive (i.e. whether the PC is horizontal as on a
>desktop, or vertical as in a stand on the floor) effect the lifespan of the
>drive?  It stands to some limited reason that if the drive can wear a second
>divot in the bearing point (I've never had one apart) then standing the PC
>on its edge would put more stress on the bearing point, and consquently wear
>the second divot faster.  Any comments?
>
>			Thanks.


Based upon the hundreds of drives I have tested over the years, I don't recall
any preference in lifetime to a given position.  Flat appears to be more
common than vertical for desktop machines and vice versa for deskside machines
due solely to engineering.

However, there IS one thing to know which is very trivial and everyone probably
knows it already:  once a drive is up and running in a given position for
awhile, do *NOT* change the position.  Not only was drive wear increased
after the mounting position was changed, but the head rides differently in
each of the three positions (flat, vertical left, vertical right) and data
loss was noted.  (This was done as part of a deliberate test).

Although your wear increases, the data problem is resolved by reformatting
the entire drive and restoring from the backup made prior to the change.
As has been pointed out by many users regarding the torque of the hard
drive mounting screws, drives are very sensitive to the mounting
environment!

-Mitch