What Can Kill A Hard Drive?

[elpresidente2075]

"One day at band camp" We had this HDD and we formatted it three times with three different operating systems. Man you should have been there

Can you say "Mechanical"? ANY mechanical device is prone to failure for ANY number of reasons. You simply mitigate these reasons through good design.

Heat can be an issue, but given the operating temperature specs of the newer drives this is becoming less of an issue (quite a large range). I have left my notebook computer in my truck during a full night of -13 degrees F. It booted no problem "right after I let it come back up to the operating temperature range". Kinda cool seeing the condensation on the notebook evaporate away!

There are obviously three main elements to any HDD. Platters, Spindles and Read/write arm. If any of those three items become misaligned there is a problem. Heat can cause a distortion of the platters or the read/right arm. Not likely in normal operations but could happen in a poorly designed machine with very poor ventilation.

What we need is a frictionless bearing like a Mag Lev bearing. With a fixed read/write arm with pickups the entire length of the platter so it could read each sector in a fixed fashion. Then all you would need is a synchronization of the platter speed with the fixed read/write arm. This is similar to beam steering.

But this would only work well in computers that DO NOT MOVE.

By the way Mag Lev would also be beneficial since after the initial spin up of the device (slow) you would never have to wait for spin up again because you could simply keep it spun up. And the platter speeds could be MUCH higher if the platters were gyroscopically stabilized!

Edited to correct horrible typos!!

I think that a Mag Lev bearing would kill a hard drive just by operating. Magnets + Magnetic Media = not good things.

However, if I am not mistaken, the ones with Fluid Dynamic Bearings use a liquid metal similar to to mercury for the bearing. That, obviously would cut down on noise, and I'm pretty sure that would eliminate a lot of friction. Anyone know for sure what I'm talking about?

 

[ches111]

K, forgot one thing that is also a main killer of HDDs,

USE!

Yup USE! If you use it, you eventually lose it!

Mechanical deivce + usage = wear and tear/eventual death!

 

[ches111]

Isolation of the fields would be of concern but is actually manageable since the design of a mag lev bearing mostly contains the field itself.

 

[ches111]

You might be thinking along the lines of the spinning top toys that sit on peoples desks. This is similar in its use but not typically how mag lev bearings for high speed shafts are designed.

 

[elpresidente2075]

You might be thinking along the lines of the spinning top toys that sit on peoples desks. This is similar in its use but not typically how mag lev bearings for high speed shafts are designed.

You seem to know a lot more than I do about the magnetic fields of Mag Lev. I just get a little wary when a magnet (electro or not) is placed within range of any magnetic media. Just for reference, do you know anywhere I can find out about these fields and how they interact? I would kinda like to know more.

 

[ches111]

This LINK provides some information. I will see if i can find some better info on the field dispersion.

Most implementations of the Mag Lev use a flywheel type of method for stored energy. This is the reason for the slow spin up time that i referred to earlier. But with the stored energy that the flywheel contains allows for gyro stab and also requires very little energy usage to keep the rotational speed up!

 

[ches111]

I actually worked on a project that used this concept for both a pretty constant rotational speed and for gyro stability.

I almost took a job down south "Atlanta" to work on Mag Lev trains (software design for control systems). I declined because I would really NOT like to live in Atlanta even if temporary!

 

[INeedCache]

Excessive heat, especially if constant, and lots of jostling about. In other words, put in a machine with adequate cooling, and don't be rough with it while doing that. Hard drives are sensitive, and therefore you must be caring, loving, gentle, and sensitive in return. A good hard drive is your friend.