Is it safe to use hard drives vertically?

[tgfyhre]

I'm looking at some external hard drive docking stations. Most of them mount the drives vertically. I also see a lot of external enclosures, and some are horizontal, and some are vertical. Is it safe to run hard drives vertically? I've read in the past that it's not a good idea to run drives in the vertical position, but lots of docking stations and enclosures are made that way. Should I worry about my drives being used vertically?

 

[strollin]

The drives can be mounted in any orientation.

 

[Layback Bear]

As strollin has stated. It doesn't matter. Just make sure the cable are not in a bind and their is some air going over them.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

I read somewhere once upon a time that, once a new drive is run for any length of time in a particular orientation, it should be left in that orientation to avoid conflicting bearing wear patterns which could reduce drive life. Also, running a drive vertically would slightly reduce drive life but not enough to worry about. You will be fine running your drives in docks.