New Hard Drive

August 2, 2004 6:09 AM

I've just bought and installed a new hard drive. At the moment, it's bolted to the drive bay by only two screws, along one edge. The drive bay that it's in is too big, and I don't have anything that could be used as a shoring bracket (the machine itself is a crappy OEM, and the case is built so that I've no way of approaching the drive from another direction to install one, anyway). Is there any real danger that my drive might damage itself by resonating?
posted by Jongo to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Hard drives have survived two-screw ghetto mounting before, and they will continue to do so. I can't imagine there's danger to the drive itself so long as the case isn't being hauled around.

Does the drive cage come out? Most crappy cases that don't let you in on the reverse side will at least let you drop the drive cage to get your stuff in there, and then it's just a matter of putting in some brackets.
posted by majick at 6:54 AM on August 2, 2004

Response by poster: Hard drives have survived two-screw ghetto mounting before, and they will continue to do so.

Oh, good. The case never moves, so if that's the only danger, then I'm very relieved.

No, the cage seems squarely mounted in place. There's some sort of springloaded catch mechanism, which, as far as I can tell, serves no purpose other than to slough any rough skin off my fingertips.
posted by Jongo at 7:17 AM on August 2, 2004

Should be no problem unless the case is under undue shocks or stresses.

Are you in an earthquake zone? (I'm being serious).
posted by Ynoxas at 8:48 AM on August 2, 2004

I've done the lazy two-screw hard drive install on many, many servers, and they've all survived quite fine.
posted by cmonkey at 12:39 PM on August 2, 2004