What’s the best position for fixed HDDs, on a shelf, vertical or horizontal, for a long term use?
I’m thinking of few advantages and disadvantages for one or the other, but I don’t know if they confirm in realty and how much can influence the drive’s life.
Horizontal advantages:
the heads are moving in the horizontal plane, so the force nedeed to push them in each direction is the same, dosen’t fight gravity.
the hot air has a much larger cooling surface, the drive’s top plate.
Horizontal disadvantages:
takes more space on the shelf if you put them side by side.
if you stack them, the top ones can become overheated by the heat from below.
The vertical position has pretty much the opposite advantages and disadvantages.
the heads are fighting gravity when moving up;
the cooling surface on top is very small, necesitating fans to blow air on the sides to compensate;
they take less space on the shelf when putt side by side.
I guess the main problem is the heat management in every setup.
I can confirm that in a NAS (Synology), with vertical side-by-side drives, the exterior one (bay 1) is much cooler that the midle one (bay 2).
broooh, i would say, default hdd position always better, just provide a necessary cooling.
I got some High tower PC and got 3 x 140cm fans in front, cooling all HDDs, sooo no problem with heat.
But energy consumption is higher. If you could achieve good results with passive cooling, just by changing the setup position, why use the more expensive solution?
For high performing HDDs You always need fans, if You want them to be in good temp.
Sooo it’s just the matter how You implement fans to be optimal for Your HDD in default position, which is also optimal position.
140x140 fans are slower, but wider, i belive they consume at most the same wattage as 120x120 or less, but are more efficient and also lower noise.
got HDDs one on top of another, and 3 fans covers that.
There is no other way, You have to have some cooling, i gues its + 15watt x 24h x 365days, but its nessesary, coz hot is bad for hdds ¯_(ツ)_/¯
if i put it vertically, first i have no option in such PC case, if i had, that would just add cons to heads fighting the gravity, so no change or benefits to cooling system, soo yeaah.
I put my HDDs vertically, with sata connector upside, i redesigned my 4U cases for this, because i made it with soft pads that deal with vibrations, and dont spread it from one hdd to enother.
Orientation of drives is in the datasheet: for most there are only two: PCB down or on the side.
Temperatures are also in the datasheet, for most they are from (don’t remember, never had a “disk too cold” problem) to 65C. Its very easy to keep disks under 65C, sometimes even with passive cooling.
Yes, but as the temp is the main factor that affects drive’s longevity, lower is better. And is more of a curiosity. Of course, in practice, we keep the drives in the position permited by the setups, but in some situations, if you would had to choose, you would want to make the best choise.
I hear that a lot, and this is technically true (that temperature affects longevity, not that it’s a main factor), but would you really care if (ball-parking here) your drive could work for 20 years vs 5 years, if you are going to replace it in 3 because you run out of space? Drives have 5 year warranty, when operated up to and including that 65C. And I value quiet sever more than longevity of the equipment, that I got on ebay in the first place, and will sell on ebay when I’m done it would be obsolete anyway.
In reality, these temperatures that human body considers extreme are a very narrow range for electronics and mechanics: most silicon is fine up to 80-120С, and drives have compensation for thermals affecting mechanics. I’d say 65C is conservative; in the end, manufacturer says it works up to 65 - -well, I’m reducing fan speeds until it’s at 65.
Anecdotally I did not have a drive failure once I started buying used disks on ebay at the bottom of the bathtub curve (and run them hot, 60-65C), since about 10 years ago.
Maybe not 20, but I’ve seen many small business setups with very old drives, often around 10 years old. Still enough disk space left for regular operation. They don’t want to spend money on replacement, because why would they if everything works…
Oh yes. As long as drives are left alone and allowed to work undisturbed they can vastly exceed their warranty period.
It happened to me way more often than reasonable to be a coincidence: I would have an array of a fairly shitty drives (WD green at the time) that would work for years, pass monthly scrubs, smart checks etc. and then once i spin one down and remove the disk to replace/sell, connect to another machine — bam, bad sectors, recalibration errors, etc.
i think it’s because it’s actually mechanically worn out — too loose/wiggly/tolerances out of the window; but if it is allowed to get worn out gradually in one orientation under same conditions - the adjustments can keep it working. But once you move it out — it’s too loose to be able to compensate in such a wide range. Maybe if you put in in the same orientation it would work, but you can’t sell disk like that
Or maybe it’s a spin down/spin up that makes worn disk fail, that would otherwise kept working spinning at the constant rate.
So I think temperature is less important than leaving disks undisturbed.
Of course the on/off, spin up/down cycles, vibrations and physical hits are the most damaging, but I reffer only to storagenode use cases, where the drive is ON 24/7, no spin down time, or hybernation, no hits, no external vibrations. After eliminating all off this, the temperature and workload are the main factors that affect in the long run a drive. I’m not taking into account the power source, or the cables, that presumably are working in parameters. With the workload, you can use a ssd for databeses, logs, etc, or you don’t; other than that, you can’t do much about it. So all it remains to manage is the temperature.
I realy can’t argue with facts about how much the temp is affecting a drive’s life. I just make asumptions, considering high temps are bad.
