Crthuky

There was a time when floppy disk drives were big, expensive devices that in many cases, instead of being components of a computer, would be separate machines connected by a cable, in some cases with their own CPU. A well-known example was the Commodore 1541, which had a similar CPU to the Commodore 64.

I personally only ever had one external drive, but when you look at photographs of setups with two drives (very desirable if you could afford it), they are always side-by-side, taking up an awful lot of desk space. Even the CBM 4040 dual drive, places the drives side-by-side in a single very wide case.

It seems to me that since disk drives are fundamentally horizontal devices that want to be wide rather than tall, the obvious solution would be to stack them vertically. Maybe this would result in each drive picking up heat and vibration from the other one, but if this was tolerable when they were stacked vertically in a PC tower case, why not for external drives?

Were external disk drives ever stacked vertically? If not, why not?

Yes; this was standard procedure for at least the BBC Micro:

Including for third-party drives:

Presumably because two drives arranged that way were only just taller than the machine itself:

1. I don't think your claim that never happened is generally true


2. It makes a lot of sense to put drives side by side when you want to place the drive set between computer and CRT (like many Apple users did). That wouldn't work well with stacks.


3. Especially twin 3 1/2" drives were very often sold as vertical stacks. But some vendors also did the same with the larger drive sets
   


4. If you look at earlier drives, 2 x 5 1/4 full-height drives stacked on top of the other really would be awkward to handle (but, see here) - that simply looks clunky.

Other than that, I don't see a technical reason why you wouldn't want to stack drives on top of the others. The frames of 5 1/4 drives are mostly aluminium castings, so stable enough to stack, and heat really shouldn't be a problem with floppy drives.

German Wikipedia seems to know how to stack Commodore 4040 drives as well. You simply need to have enough of them ;)

It seems to me that since disk drives are fundamentally horizontal devices that want to be wide rather than tall,

To me they are taller than wide. After all, that's as well the orientation IBM did put the very first drive, so anything else is plain wrong, isn't it :))

the obvious solution would be to stack them vertically.

That's pure opinion and up to the designer how he imagines a drive to look best or fit best. The drives itself work in any orientation with any angle equally well.

It seems to me that since disk drives are fundamentally horizontal devices

As said before, they are not, they work in any orientation. At least as long as we talk about the technology. If at all, any orientation can come from ball bearing involved. Except, for simple low speed application next to any standard bearing will offer the needed support strength - if that drive has one at all.

Were external disk drives ever stacked vertically?

It has been used in any kombination you may thing of.

• Horizontal side by side like in a DEC RX01/02 - as that will need less HE in a rack

• Horizontal above each other like the Atari 815

• Vertical side by side like IBM's 6330 8" drive

• Vertical above each other (Again DEC computers)

(Still looking for the right picture)

• Or even both like with a Heathkit H17 case where two dives were mounted horizontal side by side, but when a third drive got added they where turned vertical to fit the case.

• Heck, they where even Computers mouting them both way at the same time:

• And then there was the DEC RX-50 dual drive, used in PCs to be placed either as desktop (with the drive horizontal) or tower (now vertical), whatever fits the desk.

In the TRS-80 Model I and Model II ecosystems, floppy drives normally had the disk oriented vertically. This made the drives "tall rather than wide", and placing multiple drives side-by-side worked well.

In the Model III, two horizontal drives were stacked vertically in the main housing, to the right of the CRT (and above the numeric keypad).