# Romio on the level?



## PAL-Ron (Jun 9, 2015)

I'm trying to figure where to place my Romio and am looking at options to place it inside a cabinet. The Romio fits, but not enough room to put the plugs in the back. If I tilt the back up 6 inches, there would be room to make the connections. This would place it on an angle with the face down and the rear up. Does anyone have experience placing it on a tilt with the back up in the air like this vs being level? Thanks Ron


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

PAL-Ron said:


> Does anyone have experience placing it on a tilt with the back up in the air like this vs being level? Thanks Ron


TiVo will not care if it's tilted, but it could affect the IR remote operation, RF remote should be unaffected.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

I've heard
Hard Drives are not designed to run at an angle.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

You dont want the Tivo in a hustler pose in the cabinet, the harddrive needs to be flat or 90 degrees.
Its a 3.5 Desktop drive. If it were a 2.5 laptop or SSD, it would be a different story.


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## Leo_N (Nov 13, 2003)

telemark said:


> I've heard
> Hard Drives are not designed to run at an angle.


Pretty much what I was going to say. I would pretty much advise keeping the axis of the hard drive either parallel or perfectly perpendicular to the ground.

With keeping the hard drive axis parallel to the ground this would theoretically allow you to spin the TiVo unit 360 degrees. However you may want to worry about line of sight to the front of unit, especially in case of IR, also to view what is happening with the lights on front. More importantly you'd want to be concerned about heat being able to leave the unit. So I would certainly worry about where the vents are on the enclosure.

Of course some would argue that laptop drives are on an angle pretty often, so there is that as well.

edit: I see Foghorn2 made a similar point about laptop drives and of course SSD as well


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

foghorn2 said:


> You dont want the Tivo in a hustler pose in the cabinet, the harddrive needs to be flat or 90 degrees.
> Its a 3.5 Desktop drive. If it were a 2.5 laptop or SSD, it would be a different story.


Why?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

You can always drill/cut some holes in the cabinet.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

There's a long discussion of theories why on this board:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21533

I was told not to do it by a leading [astro]Physicist.

I won't pretend to truly understand the physics, but it is in Physics 101.
Something about angular momentum vectors vs gravity vectors.

PhD vs Internet forum. Hmm, guess which one I follow.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Gravity.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

telemark said:


> I was told not to do it by a leading [astro]Physicist.
> 
> I won't pretend to truly understand the physics, but it is in Physics 101.
> Something about angular momentum vectors vs gravity vectors.


I could see that. I can't confirm the specifics but in theory at least there could be some unwanted friction and grinding of the spinning part in the way it makes contact with the stationary part.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

telemark said:


> ......
> I was told not to do it by a leading [astro]Physicist.
> 
> .......


This guy?


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

jrtroo said:


> Gravity.


Still just a theory.


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## BruinGuy (Apr 16, 2015)

telemark said:


> I've heard
> Hard Drives are not designed to run at an angle.


Yet hundreds of millions hard drives do just that. I'm responsible for thousands of PCs at my company and we have many hard drives mounted vertically (on their side). In fact, in blade servers that's the only way to mount them. All of our mainframe (IBM Power 8 server) SANs have hard drives mounted on their sides, hundreds of them. Running our entire business. That's the only direction they can go. I've been in the profession for decades and have never heard that hard drives shouldn't be mounted or used vertically.

If hard drives couldn't be used in every angle the iPod Classic would never have been reliable.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

BruinGuy said:


> Yet hundreds of millions hard drives do just that. I'm responsible for thousands of PCs at my company and we have many hard drives mounted vertically (on their side). In fact, in blade servers that's the only way to mount them. All of our mainframe (IBM Power 8 server) SANs have hard drives mounted on their sides, hundreds of them. Running our entire business. That's the only direction they can go. I've been in the profession for decades and have never heard that hard drives shouldn't be mounted or used vertically.


Yes, but in this case the "axis of the hard drive is perfectly perpendicular to the ground" as Leo_N mentioned.

What PAL-Ron is suggesting is not perpendicular to the ground.


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## BruinGuy (Apr 16, 2015)

waynomo said:


> Yes, but in this case the "axis of the hard drive is perfectly perpendicular to the ground" as Leo_N mentioned.
> 
> What PAL-Ron is suggesting is not perpendicular to the ground.


The axis of the hard drive of the iPod in my pocket is seldom perpendicular to the ground either.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

BruinGuy said:


> The axis of the hard drive of the iPod in my pocket is seldom perpendicular to the ground either.


They also mentioned this not being a concern with laptop drives. I would consider an iPod to be in that same class.


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## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

BruinGuy said:


> I've been in the profession for decades and have never heard that hard drives shouldn't be mounted or used vertically.


Just to clarify, that's not the debate. All the 90 degree orientations, which some count as 6 cube orientations, is officially sanctioned by everyone.

OP was basically asking about a 45 degree angle. So following that example, can anyone say they've seen that from a major Datacenter manufacturer?



> If hard drives couldn't be used in every angle the iPod Classic would never have been reliable.


Ya, everyone wants to point at this example. I recall that being a 4200rpm drive, 1.8" or 1". If the force is proportional to the mass and acceleration, then it's at the opposite side of the spectrum to a 5400 (or 7200rpm) 3.5". Platter counts are totally different too.

Also if you listen to an iPod drive, it spins up loads a song, then goes to sleep. Its spin time is smaller %, than you'd expect. 
Tivo drives are the opposite and practically never sleep.


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## series5orpremier (Jul 6, 2013)

Plus both the angular momentum and gravitational torque are proportional to the radius of the drive, so between the reduced mass and the reduced radius and the reduced rpm the issue is maybe 1% to 2% of the concern it is in a Roamio drive before even accounting for reduced spin time.


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## PAL-Ron (Jun 9, 2015)

Thanks everyone. The technical knowledge is impressive. I will see if there is enough room to make a cut in the back of the cabinet to get it flat. I obviously don't want it on an angle.

I'll look elsewhere regarding the heat buildup as I can tell it gets warm and there may not be enough air circulation inside. This is a shallow depth cabinet custom built onto the wall in a sunroom, so venting it isn't an option. 

Now if it was a man cave I'd have free rein. But I gotta say the glass is half full since the HD flat screen wasn't on the plans originally and now with TiVo the set up is awesome.

Ron


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## gespears (Aug 10, 2007)

And they didn't even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!


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## krkaufman (Nov 25, 2003)

PAL-Ron said:


> Thanks everyone. The technical knowledge is impressive. I will see if there is enough room to make a cut in the back of the cabinet to get it flat. I obviously don't want it on an angle.
> 
> I'll look elsewhere regarding the heat buildup as I can tell it gets warm and there may not be enough air circulation inside. This is a shallow depth cabinet custom built onto the wall in a sunroom, so venting it isn't an option.
> 
> Now if it was a man cave I'd have free rein. But I gotta say the glass is half full since the HD flat screen wasn't on the plans originally and now with TiVo the set up is awesome.


Must the Roamio go there, or would installing a Mini be a workable alternative? The form factor issue would be resolved, though heat build-up might still be a concern, however much reduced. Plus, you'd lose less if heat *did* affect the device.


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## PAL-Ron (Jun 9, 2015)

Great thought as that is what I figured out yesterday. On a temp basis I just put the Romio up on the counter next to the TV in the sunroom. Later this summer I will upgrade my TV room with this new Romio, hook up mocha, and get a mini for the sunroom. Bingo, nice, neat, perfect!


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## gadgetzilla (Apr 6, 2015)

The technology has certainly advanced. With the advent of an SSD drive, since there are no moving parts, angle of placement of the disk drive shouldn't come into play.

In reality, not sure just how many people are really using an SSD in their tivo since the large sized SSD's are expensive.

Personally, heat build would be a bigger concern which can greatly reduce the life of electronics. Proper venting is necessary, no matter what angle the tivo unit is placed.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

SSD's are not the best drives for DVRs.


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