Vertical pizza, OK ... one caveat

[Fred Lakin]

In summary, many folk have been running as I described (pizza box on side)
for up to a year with no problems. However, one person raised a good point
about the orientation of internal drives.

INSTALLATION: I put mine feet to the wall, secured with eye-bolts and
20-26" bungie cord. Because of the internal drive orientation problem (see
below), it's flopy slot side up, on blocks to clear vents on the bottom.
And then a dust flap over the floppy slot.

CAVEAT: Scott Baeder points out that disk drives like to be on THEIR side
or bottom; putting the pizza box front side down puts the drive on its
head.

  My guess is that face down is BAD, since the drive would be on its head,
  not its side...We run with them on one side all the time, and have had no
  problems yet...as always, CAVEAT EMPTOR...
  could be ok, I'm just going by what the manual for a quantum (40 Meg in
  my amiga at home) manual said... (the sparcs we have have Quantum
  drives).

************************ responses ******************

|From: rec at arris.com (Roger Critchlow)

We've been running three SS1's on their faces on the floor for almost six
months now.  We've had no problems with them.

|From: pbg at cs.brown.edu

We have many Sparcstation1's running just as you said (green light down)
without problems.  It's best to format any internal disk in the
orientation in which it will be used, but we haven't had any problems
along those lines.

|From: wsd at cs.brown.edu

I don't know what the official opinion is, but I know quite a few people
who do just what you described.  They seem happy.

|From: cadence!baeder at uunet.uu.net (D. Scott Baeder; x299)

My guess is that face down is BAD, since the drive would be on its head,
not its side...We run with them on one side all the time, and have had no
problems yet...as always, CAVEAT EMPTOR...

|From: Mitchell Wyle <wyle at inf.ethz.ch>

I have had mine on the floor in the position you describe since it
arrived.  No problems or downtime (except power failures).

|From: portier at milo (Working For A Better World Through Math)

We have had an SS1 operating in this mode for 6 months.  No problems.
Configuration includes two 100 meg disks which have worked flawlessly.
The only problem is that the floppy drive is inaccessible.

|From: sysnmc at magic706.chron.com (Matt Cohen)

My 4/60 has been on its side, behind my desk, at least since September
with no trouble.  Good luck!

|From: cadence!baeder at uunet.UU.NET (D. Scott Baeder)

Could be ok, I'm just going by what the manual for a quantum (40 Meg in my
amiga at home) manual said... (the Sparcs we have have Quantum drives).
As for heat and ventilation, I doubt that unless you really jack up the
memory (ie 64 Meg) that heat would be a big problem...

As for the other responses, I guess it also depends on if they are using
internal drives or not...ie we run a lot of 3/60's and diskless Sparcs
(external drives) face down, but I think that for the Sparcs with drives &
3/80's we mostly put them side down...

But, as they say, "...your mileage may vary"

|From: cadence!baeder at uunet.UU.NET (D. Scott Baeder)

I don't think side makes a difference, but your right...floppy side down
wouldn't be too usefull ;-)