I’m an IT engineer by profession. For years, I’ve advised clients to always run their mechanical hard drives in the horizontal position (never in the vertical position) to avoid damaging the drives.
My information is a little old. Does the recommendation still apply on WD drives or is the drive’s position no longer relevant? Does running the drive upside down have a negative impact on the hard drive?
This question is mainly aimed at WD representatives and engineers as they would be the most familiar with the designs of current gen disks. If non-WD members of the community have researched this topic as well or have run drives in the vertical position for over 5 years with no failures, I’d also like to hear their feedback as well.
If you would prefer for WD Personnel to provide some guidance then it would be best to contact WD Support directly about this since this is a User forum. You can do so over the phone or via E-mail.
Good point, and look where the rubber “feet” are on the device since that is the bottom. It might not even matter since drives are mounted both ways – wherever WD puts the feet.
I think what matters is not to rotate a drive with any force while it’s spinning. We all know what a gyroscope wants to do when it’s spinning. I guess the spinning disc acts like a gyroscope. It will resist being turned. The drives will be engineered with a good tolerance to this sort of movement.
There would need to be unreasonable and excessive amount force to mechanically kill a hard drive by external forces.
