Hard drive position?

[Roberto]

I know, I know. Everyone will suggest that hard drive position in a PC is irrelevant. However, I wonder. Here are my reasons:

I have an older Pentium with 2 hard drives. They are positioned vertically in the PC. That is, if you are in front of the computer, the hard drives are connected in the back and one is resting on its right side and the other is resting on its left side. The reason one is left and the other is right is because this is the only way they can be installed in the hard drive bay.

I have had many hard drive failures on this PC in the past and I sometimes still hear those dreaded "clicks" when the PC heats up. I have considered past hard drive failures bad luck. The hard drives are fairly recent vintage of 1.2gb and 8gb and have now been in the PC for about a year with no apparent problems.

Recently, I have just purchased a new monitor and re-positioned the computer so that it is on its side. Now the hard drives are resting in flat positions. That is, one has its top up and the other has its top down. By the top of a hard drive I mean that portion of the hard drive that usually has shinny metal. The bottom portion usually shows the circuitry.

In this position it seems to me that the hard drives run much quieter and I have not heared the occasional clicking. Perhaps that is due to our cold winter.

So, does hard drive position really matter?

[HAL9000]

I would have to say no. I have never experienced problems that I cound directly relate to positioning. If there was a problem with positioning, hard drive manufacturers would most likely give mounting specifications such as tolerable angles and such.

[Spiffman]

it might not be toe acctual position of the drives, but placing it on its side might have instead helped the cooling. i'm not sure how this might work, but depending on how you moved it as far as where it WAS (upright) to where it is now (horizontal). possibly better air flow? i'm not sure.