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What wears out in an HDD?



 
 
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  #11  
Old January 14th 16, 08:23 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,general,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
micky
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Posts: 439
Default What wears out in an HDD?

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:12:53 +0700, JJ wrote:

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 05:44:50 -0500, Micky wrote:
What wears out in an HDD? Is it only the tone arm that breaks? or
can the bearings the platter rides on break??? Good watches use
jewels, rubies, as bearings; and cheap watches use metal. What do
hard drives use?


Most of the causes is due to combination of heat and force.

IMO, the arm and bearings and are pretty solid but it's not impossible for
them to break - depending on the material and manufacturing quality.


So what clicks when the drive breaks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearing_(mechanical)#Service_life

Does the spindle really ride on an air cushion?


From where did you have that thought?


From a fairly detailed webpage.
  #12  
Old January 14th 16, 08:24 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
micky
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Posts: 439
Default What wears out in an HDD?

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 13:38:04 -0500, Paul wrote:


The *head* floats on a cushion of air. And it's not really


Maybe that's what it said. Darn that Evelyn Wood.

a cushion shape either. There is a fairly small, fairly high
pressure zone near the head, that prevents contact (most
of the time).

  #13  
Old January 14th 16, 08:35 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,general,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 187
Default What wears out in an HDD?

On 1/14/2016 1:23 PM, Micky wrote:
On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:12:53 +0700, JJ wrote:

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 05:44:50 -0500, Micky wrote:
What wears out in an HDD? Is it only the tone arm that breaks? or
can the bearings the platter rides on break??? Good watches use
jewels, rubies, as bearings; and cheap watches use metal. What do
hard drives use?


Most of the causes is due to combination of heat and force.

IMO, the arm and bearings and are pretty solid but it's not impossible for
them to break - depending on the material and manufacturing quality.


So what clicks when the drive breaks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearing_(mechanical)#Service_life

Does the spindle really ride on an air cushion?


From where did you have that thought?


From a fairly detailed webpage.



And sometimes the hamster just gets tired. :-))

Regards, Rene


  #14  
Old January 14th 16, 08:41 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,general,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rod Speed
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Posts: 8,559
Default What wears out in an HDD?

Micky wrote

What wears out in an HDD?


That varys. Sometimes the don't spin up because the heads are
stuck to the platter. Sometimes the electronics dies. Sometimes
they end up with too many bad spots, usually due to crap
floating around inside the 'sealed' chamber.

Is it only the tone arm that breaks?


There is no tone arm. The preamp for the heads on
the heads arm can die and the head can come off too.

or can the bearings the platter rides on break???


Not break so much as wear out and get very noisy.

Good watches use jewels, rubies, as bearings;


Only the older analog watches.

and cheap watches use metal. What do hard drives use?


Originally metal bearings but now fluid bearings.

I googled but couldn't find much about this.
Does the spindle really ride on an air cushion?


No, the heads do.

Even when the drive is positioned sideways?


Yep. And upside down too. The bigger drives
have more than 1 head and some of the heads
use the underside of the platter even with the
drive positioned normally. They have springs
that hold the heads against the platter and the
heads don't contact the platter when its rotating,
they fly on a layer of air between the platter
surface and the head itself.
  #15  
Old January 14th 16, 08:48 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,general,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rod Speed
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Posts: 8,559
Default What wears out in an HDD?



"Micky" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 21:12:53 +0700, JJ wrote:

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 05:44:50 -0500, Micky wrote:
What wears out in an HDD? Is it only the tone arm that breaks? or
can the bearings the platter rides on break??? Good watches use
jewels, rubies, as bearings; and cheap watches use metal. What do
hard drives use?


Most of the causes is due to combination of heat and force.

IMO, the arm and bearings and are pretty solid but it's not impossible for
them to break - depending on the material and manufacturing quality.


So what clicks when the drive breaks?


That's mostly the drive moving the heads to a known spot to recalibrate
the position of the head arm. When the drive can no longer read the
tracks, say because the head preamp has failed or some other part of
the system that reads the tracks has failed, it keeps trying to recalibrate
and never succeeds and that can produce audible clicking in some drives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearing_(mechanical)#Service_life

Does the spindle really ride on an air cushion?


From where did you have that thought?


From a fairly detailed webpage.


But you confused the spindle with the heads.

  #16  
Old January 14th 16, 10:22 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware,general,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Jerry Peters
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Posts: 71
Default What wears out in an HDD?

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage John McGaw wrote:
On 1/14/2016 5:44 AM, Micky wrote:
What wears out in an HDD? Is it only the tone arm that breaks? or
can the bearings the platter rides on break??? Good watches use
jewels, rubies, as bearings; and cheap watches use metal. What do
hard drives use?

I googled but couldn't find much about this. Does the spindle really
ride on an air cushion? Even when the drive is positioned sideways?


The heads ride on an air cushion, not the spindle. Any modern drive will
have an automatic unload system which causes the head actuator to retract
when the drive is powered down and the head arms are rested in a
'comb'-like rack right next to the edge of the platter. After the platter
spins up to speed the actuator moves the head arms off the rack and eases
them over the edge of the platters where the heads ride on a thin film of
air which spins along with the ultra-smooth platters thanks to miniscule
air foil shapes adjacent to the heads. There should never be any contact
and, thanks to the miniscule size of the heads in modern drives, any
contact will be disastrous.

In primitive drives the heads actually stayed over the platters and came
into contact when the drive spun down (anybody else remember the 'stiction'
problem in 10 and 20mb drives?) but the heads there were pretty beefy and
could stand a bit of rough treatment.


Company I worked at had a similiar problem with IBM 3380 drives, the
arm retracted against a rubber bumper, which over time had become
"sticky". So when we had a power failure, and the UPS didn't cut in
(which happened about half the time), some of the disks wouldn't come
back online.
  #17  
Old January 15th 16, 03:28 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
masonc
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Posts: 8
Default What wears out in an HDD?

On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 13:11:40 -0500, Paul wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 1/14/2016 10:24 PM, JJ wrote:
No. Not really. Not all of them. It depends on the HDD manufacturing.
Some
models are durable, and some are not.

My 160GB WD only lasted about a year while my 3 years old 40GB Seagate is
still fine.


I have never had a dead hard disk, except that IBM Deathstar that used
glass platters. The other one I lost was a Seagate ST-251 40M (yes, 40M)
which was dropped accidentally.

FYI, my environment is somewhat harsh. No air conditioning (because
it's in
an open room), and the air is not clean enough.


Outside air shouldn't be able to reach inside the hard disk, but the
circuit board might be affected.


Outside air *does* reach the platter. There is a hole
in the cover, with a hepafilter fastened by adhesive,
on the inside surface.

http://www.howtogeek.com/127433/what...n-hard-drives/

This is a datasheet for a filter disc for the HDA cover.
Just to illustrate they do exist.

https://www.donaldson.com/en/diskdri...ary/051290.pdf

*******

The only drives currently which are completely
sealed, are the Hitachi helium drives. (I don't know
if anyone else makes a helium drive yet or not. There
isn't a lot of helium to be wasted any more. The price
is getting quite high.)

Such a drive, wants to keep the helium inside.
(No need for a breather hole :-) )
I consider such a design to be truly miraculous,
as you know how hard it is to keep helium
gas in anything. Helium gas is used specifically
for lab testing, for the detection and removal
of leaks in vacuum systems. It's a bitch to
keep it from leaking.

Paul


But, but, Paul, the HDD helium can be at room pressure.
The only "leak" would be interchange of helium and
air molecules at whatever small leak existed, including
difusion through the "impervious" walls.

And, yes, a few balloons would fill all the HDDs with no
effect on Hitachi's balance sheet.

  #18  
Old January 15th 16, 03:37 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,general,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
masonc
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Posts: 8
Default What wears out in an HDD?

On Fri, 15 Jan 2016 06:48:18 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

So what clicks when the drive breaks?


That's mostly the drive moving the heads to a known spot to recalibrate
the position of the head arm.


You kids may not remember the Commodore disk drive that always banged
its head against the wall to learn its position. Users learned how to
bend things back into place after too many head bangings.

Oh, for the good old days !


  #19  
Old January 15th 16, 04:32 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rene Lamontagne
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Posts: 187
Default What wears out in an HDD?

On 1/14/2016 8:28 PM, masonc wrote:
On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 13:11:40 -0500, Paul wrote:

Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 1/14/2016 10:24 PM, JJ wrote:
No. Not really. Not all of them. It depends on the HDD manufacturing.
Some
models are durable, and some are not.

My 160GB WD only lasted about a year while my 3 years old 40GB Seagate is
still fine.

I have never had a dead hard disk, except that IBM Deathstar that used
glass platters. The other one I lost was a Seagate ST-251 40M (yes, 40M)
which was dropped accidentally.

FYI, my environment is somewhat harsh. No air conditioning (because
it's in
an open room), and the air is not clean enough.

Outside air shouldn't be able to reach inside the hard disk, but the
circuit board might be affected.


Outside air *does* reach the platter. There is a hole
in the cover, with a hepafilter fastened by adhesive,
on the inside surface.

http://www.howtogeek.com/127433/what...n-hard-drives/

This is a datasheet for a filter disc for the HDA cover.
Just to illustrate they do exist.

https://www.donaldson.com/en/diskdri...ary/051290.pdf

*******

The only drives currently which are completely
sealed, are the Hitachi helium drives. (I don't know
if anyone else makes a helium drive yet or not. There
isn't a lot of helium to be wasted any more. The price
is getting quite high.)

Such a drive, wants to keep the helium inside.
(No need for a breather hole :-) )
I consider such a design to be truly miraculous,
as you know how hard it is to keep helium
gas in anything. Helium gas is used specifically
for lab testing, for the detection and removal
of leaks in vacuum systems. It's a bitch to
keep it from leaking.

Paul


But, but, Paul, the HDD helium can be at room pressure.
The only "leak" would be interchange of helium and
air molecules at whatever small leak existed, including
difusion through the "impervious" walls.

And, yes, a few balloons would fill all the HDDs with no
effect on Hitachi's balance sheet.



They could borrow a few lbs from the LHC, it holds about 130 Tonnes. :-))

Regards, Rene

  #20  
Old January 15th 16, 09:50 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware,general,alt.windows7.general,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rod Speed
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Posts: 8,559
Default What wears out in an HDD?

masonc wrote
Rod Speed wrote


So what clicks when the drive breaks?


That's mostly the drive moving the heads to a known
spot to recalibrate the position of the head arm.


You kids


I'm older than you thanks, child.

may not remember the Commodore disk drive that always
banged its head against the wall to learn its position.


Most of the drives of that era did that.

Some did it more loudly than others.

Users learned how to bend things back
into place after too many head bangings.


Even sillier than you usually manage.

Oh, for the good old days !


You're free to use them again any time you like.
 




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