Using a hard disk that isn’t screwed down securely?

kwikbreaks

They also prove that the bit about providing a ground (above) is wrong too.

Years back I fitted an extra drive and couldn't find any screws at the time so I just blue tacked it to the bottom of the tower - it ran like that for long enough for me to forget I'd done it (which I why I mentioned that drives loose in cases may not be wise - luckily I got away with it).

My son currently has 5 hdds held together with gaffer tape outside the case entirely connected to a raid card - been like that for months.

You can get away with being a cowboy for quite a while. Sometimes you'll get caught out though I guess.

BillScarab

pendulum wrote: »

When I got my first job in a computer shop I was always told all the screws should be used not just to keep the drive secure in the bay and to cut vibration but for grounding reasons as well. Not sure how true that is, but its good practice to use all 4 screws. (That doesn't mean I always do though ).

So how does that work in my case that uses sliding plastic clips to hold all of the drives in place? :think:

I've left drives loose before now but personally I prefer to have them held securely in place by some means, even if it's gaffer tape. If I have to move the machine I'm bound to forget there are loose drives in it.

Avoriaz

Thanks for all the replies. It appears that I have little or nothing to worry about so I shall carry on.

Avoriaz

cit_k wrote: »

..Hard drives are cheap now anyway, and you should not be relying on them to store anything important (ie nothing you dont have a backup up for) so its no great deal when they do die, which they can do at any time…....

They are cheap, especially if you source them on ebay as I do.

I bought 4 x 300gb 2.5 SATA Fujitsi drives cheaply last year. I paid less than £20 each. They were brand new and were being sold by the owner because they are oversize and didn’t fit his laptop or external caddy. They are 13.5 mm thick instead of the more usual 9.5 mm. They don’t fit my laptop either but they do fit in a caddy if I remove the caddy cover so I now use them as my main backup disks.

I’ve also bought a few lightly used 3.5 PATA disks for my Sky+ and never had a problem with them. I backup regularly and frequently and have a minimum of 2 backup copies (not counting the original) of all my essential data so I am well covered if any single disk ever fails. I keep one copy of everything offsite at a nearby friend’s house or so even if my laptop and disks are stolen or destroyed in a fire I haven’t lost everything.

I used to sell computers for IBM many years ago and I have seen the disastrous consequences of the failure to do proper backups too many times to take any risks myself.