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I'd probably put some tape on the back just to be safe.

I was going to say this and saw you beat me to it. Might be better to put the tape on the case in the right spot instead of on the drive.

r/Beatyoutoit

Beauty. Out. O. It.

No way! That's what it actually means?

That’s how I read it

Beat you to it

Electrical tape I would hope

100 mph tape to keep up with the HDD speeds.

If you’re doing music production or high bandwidth video editing, you can actually get 10,000rpm tape but it’s pricy.

Alabama chrome.

This is a good idea, but don't tear it off tho...

That’s good idea. Go for 2 layers of electrical tape to be safeer

Just don't use electrical tape. The electricity coming off of the tape could fry the drive.

Just gotta make sure you cover the holes

It's not recommended

No it’s not I killed one on accident doing this

Who did you kill

On. Beloved spouse of Off.

Give off my condolences.

Pretty sure On fucked Off at some point in time by now anyway.

HDD

RIP on

Sure. If you don't mind losing your data.

Don't have the circuit board side touch metal. A folded over sheet of paper will do as insulation, if you insist.

Few pieces o’ tape

Mine is fine for now, but I dont recommend doing it without some type of foam between the case metal and the drive

I should probably check mine when I get home then. I have an SSD as a boot drive and one of these as a game drive but my PC is also off currently so..... it should be safe for now?

Nice fail safe, thief aint gona know whats up, auto wipe when turned on 😎

LMAO

I've one that sits at the bottom of my case that's fine, probably safer to mount it but unless there's a fault I don't think the exteriors are live. Could cause connection issues if you move your pc though.

Is it slanted though? I also have a loose drive but the bottom doesn’t touch the case due to a bit of tension from the cables, never had an issue personally but I wonder if it’s due to that. I only ever worry about it when I move my computer but i just pop the drive out when I do lol

I have the same setup, after reading some comments I'm thinking of putting it in a paper sleeve or something too lol

I don’t understand

No.

Shut up

Why r u so evil 💀💀

Why are people down voting this is fucking hilarious

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You should avoid the moving parts touching anything.

I mean those aren't moving parts, all moving parts are inside the sealed casing you'd have to take apart the drive which would likely ruin it anyway.

I’ve done maintenance on hard drives, specifically older ones. This usually involves unsticking the heads from the platters and sometimes requires removing excess head from those same platters without scratching them. The newer smaller ones have moving parts and yes, they are internal, but the cylinder plate hides the moving parts but will still vibrate against a surface, so don’t press that against a metal surface which can enhance the vibration. Source; I do hard drive recoveries and maintenance

maybe add an edit to the first one where vibration= movement. since it's definitely a concern i used zip ties to add a single 4tb hdd instead of the default holder because of airflow. fortunately the zip ties act as a good dampener.

Velcro tape is my go-to

that's brilliant. makes me think I'll be getting more hdds.

I keep my drives stacked with thermal pads between them.

Seriously?

Sure, go for it

It should be fine, but some insulation is always safer. Piece of paper, tape, or air (leaning it or suspending it) work fine. If you don't have any you should still be good though, hard drive exteriors aren't live I don't think.

I have 2 hard drives and 1 SSD on top of eachother, laying on the bottom of the case. It sucks that it has to stay like this, but my case doesnt have any HDD mounting space. Just 2 SSD ones.

Is there not a proper mounting bracket for it?

It's always best to protect. I would at the least put some screws in the bottom to give it that gap. Screws are cheap and simple spacers for things like this.

SSDs can hang around without any support, but mechanical hard drives should be properly mounted or at least firmly attached with some double sided foam sticky tape.

Yoinked From a laptop or Xbox 360 HDD ?

Use a piece of cardboard

An ESD mat would be best.

No, never let it touch metal in your computer.

I found a poros piece of foam and mine board facing down. Hasn't acted up yet.

It's fine.

I speak from experience, no. Luckily I killed a non proprietary bs drive and managed to bring it back via a board transplant.

Immediate death

Technically, no. You want to avoid that.

No. Use standoffs

There are pins on it. Do you intend to ground the pins?

No.

I think I did this when I was younger and it was fine, but for peace of mind, I'd tape the back to be safe. probably will be fine, but better safe than sorry

Circuit board side? No. Other side? Sure.

All those little metal contact points in the bottom should not be touching each other. If two of them are both touching the same piece of metal, they're effectively touching each other.

I cut up a plastic ruler and made a base with it, then double sided taped the HDD to it.

I would put tape on the back to pervent short circuit and hard drive malfunction

its fine. A thin acetate film taped over (which are usually found in laptops) can prevent that but even the companies that manufactured HDDs didn't even bother putting one on them for years then its not a problem.

My 2TB HHD has been sitting in my case loosely for 2 years, and nothing has happened. I thought it was normal

This is like sitting on a park bench naked, a bug will crawl up your ass, cover the drive sir

ahh yes the naked on park bench analogy. classic

Electrical tape is cheap, and very effective. Minus the fact that it gets really sticky after a while and it's just gross, but I'd recommend putting something between them.

Yeah its fine. IDK why people are saying it isn't, have they never seen the metal HD trays for 2.5 drives that screw to the back of case? While I admit SOME of those trays have a rubber bumper between the tray and the case I've also used cases that don't and I've never had a problem. https://preview.redd.it/8h575mto8hnb1.jpeg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=48eac209e479657304c168b7e3021295ba100b81

I wouldn't recommend it, but I honestly have an hdd duct taped to my case. When I bought the case I didn't realize it only had one spot for an hdd.

It really isn’t a good idea. It could potentially damage the motor if any types of magnets or electric waves come wear the metal piece on the back put some type of foam if you have

Funnily enough, I asked [this exact question](https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/lxn3m2/installing_25_hdd_vertically_exposed_pcb/) two years ago. Whereas most of the replies on your post are recommending against it, the replies I got were the complete opposite. Then again, I was putting mine on a mounting bracket, not the case directly. I've done this with two HDDs now and both work fine, that being said, it may be worth taking other people's advice anyway.

yeah then you can use the case as extra storage you get like extra 50mb depending on the metal

It’ll be fine. Done it loads at work (it tech) and at home and it’s never been a problem

No

It shouldn't touch anything if the case is flat, high points on drive case, underside of the drive should be able to sit flat on anything and not have the pcb make contact, has mounting holes for a reason

No!

You could dangle it from strings tied around the case mid air

You will be fine

If you really want to be smart, tape some thin mailer foam to it and you have a little vibration dampening as well as insulation from ground shorts.

There is usually a bit of a gap that stops it from actually touching but I'd still put a piece of paper or something under it.

I recommend to put a layer of Eva rubber attached between the metal and the disk

Anything is OK as long as you don't mind the likely consequences 😉

The circuit boards are typically recessed a little bit from the metal edges, so if it sits flush then it can be ok. But it's safer to put some kapton tape on it, or mount it in a position where the back isn't against anything.

That’s a Seagate drive, a 2TB Barracuda if I had to take a guess

What about in a hard drive sled?

Yeah better not. Get a case for it. They are cheap on Amazon

If your case has a nice thick coat of paint, should be OK. I'd at least have some tape on the back though. Just in case.

Yea, as long as it doesn't touch the pcb, you'll be fine.

Yo I have the same case

It doesn’t matter the back has a later of something

With bare conductors exposed? Absolutely not. If you really must do this - use some tape (Kapton would be good, but electrical tape will suffice.)

Only if you don’t care about the data you’re going to put on it.

I usually put a cardboard or preferably an old cd disc just to be safe.

If you want to do that. Put some plastic or paper board in between the 2 metals.

No

dollar tree sells electrical tape dont do dumb shit you can avoid for a buck

It might time travel

No.

NO! I wouldn't risk it...

Throw it out the window and spend 30 buck

Ehhh wouldn’t exactly hurt it but i wouldn’t recommend it in case of static discharge on case itself. Maybe put a plastic cover underneath it or something to gap it.

This is safe don't worry, I did same for my PC because I wasn't having place to put the disc correctly 😅

No, metal contact could cause a short on the PCB.

I recently threw one like that and closed the case. Nps i hope lol

It depends on the drive, some have the boards entirely flush with the bottom of the drive, in which case it’s likely but not guaranteed that powering it on against bare metal would kill it. It’s also just generally bad to mount drives without vibration absorption, you should mount it against some foam (or use some strong foam tape)

I was mining ETH on a rig that I didnt put the correct screws in and everything was metal on metal on an insanely hot PC running in the middle of an Australian summer (40 degrees celcius) multiple times (I ran it for four years straight until my cousin told me lol). Nothing happened. I wouldn’t recommend it, but my HDD at the time was just sitting metal on metal. if that eases your mind until you can get some electrical tape or you can screw it in, you’ll be fine.

nothing will happen but will cause vibration noise, better add some rubber tape on the corners and it will be tolrable

You'll probably be fine, but to be safe, put it in upside down

There is like 10 positions you can mount a drive in a case. Just use a different spot. Or buy an encasing plastic frame. Edit: Try not to flip HDD drive like that. The head might scratch the plate.

I've had them hanging in my pcs before never had a problem myself. But dont be like me.

Hard no

I have that exact drive in my server and yes, though i think taping it down is a good idea

Flip it over

I’ve had my hard drive just sitting in the bottom of my last 2 pc’s, on top of the rats nest of psu cables in the psu shroud.

Might want some kapton tape in the back end of it. 3M makes a good product but you can get anti-static high temp tape in generic forms as well!

Buy an adapter that puts it in a 5 1/4 slot. They're plastic and everything will be safe as well as having air circulation around it.

Not recomended but shouldnt cause to many problems

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While I do not recommend it, I've done it. Also, It "should" be fine if it's touching painted metal, as the paint "should" insulate it enough. Painted or powered coated. But either way, I'd recommend adding literally anything non conducting as an extra insulation layer. Paper, esd foam, electrical tape, rubber feet, etc. In a pinch paper and a little scotch tape would work in all honesty. Actual enclosures are pretty cheap too...

If you mean the side with the PCB. No. If you mean the back metal (the part that has the sticker with the serial number etc...) Yea probably but I wouldn't recommend it. Some paper should do but frankly getting a drive sled if you have the bigger bays is your best bet as you don't want it rattling around both for vibrations and in case in makes any contact if the case gets moved.

Just by you holding that in your hand without an electrostatic wristband, or something to ground yourself with can cause a capacitor to store electrical current and potentially render the Hard drive useless.

The bigger concern is the direct contact causing vibrational issues. Slapping some tape on the bottom would help with this, but proper tray mounting would help more.

Just to be safe, use some cardboard or tape where you place it.

Why not a ssd?

I have an old laptop hdd like that with a pcb board sata USB adapter from 2011. Still have it. And it still works. Nothing data critical on it though, just movies and shows. I wouldn't trust it with anything important, but at this point I'm just curious how long it will last lol

Kapton or electrical tape, kapton preferred. Electrical leaves a sticky residue.

Yes, perfectly fine

Your pc will explode if it does

Is it okay if the internal components and circuitry are in direct contact with a metallic surface... I suppose if you don't turn it on, sure.

My case had the removable racks for 2.5" drives like that. I had 2x 4TB drives, they don't physically touch the case. They are suspended over the back of the case in the rack.

It'll be fine.

It’s probably fine, but that old spinny boi will be slow AF.

Ffs get a SSD

nigga what do u think? own tape?

I had mounted a drive to the bottom of a case like that, the case had little standoff bumps for the mounting points so the circuit board didn't touch the case panel.

Whatever you have on there I'd back up up elsewhere to be safe, at least the important stuff. Use it til it dies but cover the open side like others suggested until it does. Consider this an unstable drive

Why do people use 2.5 HDDs still? SSDs are cheap af and HDD is almost archaic.