Change mounting orientation after long usage

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

Hello,

I have here running a few 3.5" 1TB hard drives since years 24/7 and would like to change their mounting orientation for 90 degrees.
I have heard that after some time the orientation should not be changed because this would shorten the lifespan noticeably.
Because the mechanics, specially the bearings, have been “attuned” or ingrained and so they react of any change with earlier failure.

Is this a myth or true?

Thank you,
Greetings,

Martin

2

Hi m.fessler ,

Mounting a 3/5″ hard drive horizontally, vertically, or sideways doesn’t affect the hard drive life significantly.
WD drives will function normally whether they are mounted sideways or upside down (any X, Y, Z orientation).

Thanks!

3

Hello Peter,

thanks for your answer!
And this is also the case when the drives has already has been ran many hours
in another orientation?
So the “well attuned” mechanics or “ingrained” bearings does not really exist
and somebody told me a urban myth?

Speaking of myth… you wrote “any X, Y, Z orientation”.
I once heard drives should not be mounted at a sloping angle.
For example at 45 degrees. Only 0/90/180/270 degrees.
Also not true?

Thank you!
Greetings,

Martin

4
  • push - :innocent:

//edit:
Interesting that the WD Support (Case 090417-12289807) says exactly the opposite:

I would like to inform you that changing the orientation will not affect the lifespan of the hard drive. However, we do not recommend to change the orientation of the hard drive after hours of use of the hard drive.

What is true?

5

New E-Mail from the WD Support:

I would like to inform that I had checked the link and peter is right as well. Mounting a 3/5" hard drive horizontally, vertically, or sideways doesn’t affect the hard drive life significantly. WD drives will function normally whether they are mounted sideways or upside down (any X, Y, Z orientation).

The above statement is right but at the first installation of the drive. Western Digital does not recommend to change the orientation after the long usage.

It seems as if it were not a myth?!
Has anyone hands-on experience referring to this?

Greetings,
Martin

6

push
Any News?

7

Nothing?

8

I have a 5TB WD RED PRO drive that has been in a NAS unit for 3+ years, mounted vertically and it was totally quiet. I just moved it to an external device that has a CD drive and HD slot that looks like a Mac Mini, and the drive is mounted horizontally now. It will run fine for 24-48 hours and then start making very loud noises it did not make when it was in the NAS. Diagnostics tests say its fine, but its too noisy to tolerate. I power it down for 24 hours and its fine (its still a member of a RAID 1 mirror) and then the noise starts again. I have done this cycle 5-6 times. If it keeps happening, I am going to replace the drive