Is it safe for the bottom of a hard drive to be touching or almost touching a metal drive bay?

Question

I'm installing a new hard-drive, and have mounted it on something like this. After screwing the HDD down onto the drive adapter, I've realised there's very little clearance between its metal and the drive's PCB.

I tried to take a picture to illustrate this as best as possible, but the gap between is essentially less than 1mm, as far as I can tell. The circular part of the drive (the platter?) hangs lower than the PCB itself, and so is even closer to touching the metal.

I'm wary of installing the hard-drive like this in case it shorts or otherwise results in a failure once booted up.

Am I being paranoid? Is this standard operation for mounting HDDs in a desktop?

Solution

Yes, drives are designed to be mounted like this. (Metal brackets are very common). Also, if you have a look at the bottom of any SATA 2.5" or 3.5" drive, you will see mounting holes for just this purpose ! The frame of the drive is actually slightly deeper then the complementary, so you are probably making it work imperceptibly better by blocking and sinking some RF transmissions the circuit board might otherwise be exposed to.

Comments

[Admin]

As long as enough air gets around the drive for cooling, it should be safe. As far as touching the PCB, put a bit of cellophane tape on the drive where it might touch a trace or a component sticking up from the board (e.g. electrolytic capacitor, which may have a shell connected to the circuit). Don't overdo the tape, though -- heat kills a drive faster.

[Admin]

I have a miniPC with a PCIe SSD -and- an 2.5" HDD fastened directly to the (metal) enclosure. No problems so far and it has been on almost 24/7 for the past 2 years and the disk is old.

[Hashim Aziz]

I don't quite understand the last sentence. What exactly would block and sync RF transmissions? Are you referring to placing a protective sheet between the PCB and the adapter like DrMoishe Pippip recommends?

[davidgo]

The metal at the bottom would be acting as a partial shield, much like a farraday cage but not nearly as efficient.

[davidgo]

I'm not suggesting an insulated sheet, but that won't hurt.

[Hashim Aziz]

Ah, I see what you're saying now, the edit makes it clearer. Thanks!