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View Full Version : open HDD's



haxx
07-14-2006, 11:44 PM
why dont we take those super hot 10.000rpm drives and open them up, give a good airflow direction over them and say wow my HDD is even cooler on the btu's.

This is intended on a project of mine but it is taking time.

Cool1Net6
07-15-2006, 01:01 AM
Are you talking about opening the drive case itself, as in showing the platters?

-Cool-

Slug Toy
07-15-2006, 01:43 AM
if i might make a suggestion.... probably not a good idea.

you see, hard drives are very delicate things, with very tight spacings and little tolerance. theres a good chance that if you expose everything, dust will collect in the wrong places, and there goes your bearings, or the heads, who knows what could happen.

if you clean the air coming in, it may be possible. try it on a old or cheap drive first, and run the thing to death. see how much dust it collects and where. im an idiot, and even i wouldnt risk one of those raptors without knowing what will happen.

AKA_RA
07-15-2006, 03:08 AM
if i may add, that it doesnt matter where dust collects. they make the things in clean rooms for a reason. and they prolly have a good reason, cuz they sure arent doing it just for kicks. basically, from what i understand, the platters are extremely sensitive to any sort of particles landing on them, and that even unseen specks of dust will destroy information. so maybe opening it long enough to quickly cover it and seal the drive with plexi wont destroy it, but im pretty sure blowing air across the platters is gonna destroy it in a matter of seconds. my suggestion, if you want to cool off a hard drive efficiently and cheaply. go buy a box of old crappy PII heatsinks off of ebay and chop them up and mount them on the drive. you wont even need to point a fan directly at them if you already have some air flow in the case.

GT40_GearHead
07-15-2006, 03:54 AM
I agree with slug and AKA, you DONT wanna do that, the dust is ot the only problem, you will also mess up the heads by creating airflow over them.
And you have a nother problem, by removing the cover of the hdd you exposed to EMP, because the body and cover of the hard drive acts like a faraday cage...

And if a old 200mb hdd is gonne work a day or 2 a 10.000RPM raptor is gonna kick the bucket like that

Airbozo
07-15-2006, 06:22 PM
The reason that they make drives in a clean room is in fact that ANY particulate matter that gets into the drive enclosure will destroy the platter and head. At 10k rpm (or any speed) the heads "fly" off the platter due to the airflow created.

http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/65/

That said. In one of my first jobs we used to replace the heads in the disk drives connected to a large mainframe system. We had a _fairly_ dust free area to work in, but we noticed that if we replaced the heads and recalibrated the drive in the computer room, there were more failures than if we did the work in our _fairly_ clean lab.

You can make your own "clean room" using painters plastic and a vacuume and a few hypo-alergenic filters. just make it about 2'x3'x3' and use the playtex kitchen gloves duct taped into holes cut into the plastic. Cut another hole for the vacumme nozzle, and one for the filter (I reccomend doubling them or tripling them) and duct tape them into place. Wipe down the tools and drive with a lint free cloth, Put them into the "tent" and then turn on the vacuume for a couple of minutes. You can either leave the vaccume on or turn it off if you are quick and carefull. Open up the drive, insert your precut plexi close everything up and wha la!

Remeber to keep the vent on the drive cover...

Here is another example: I would be leary about the humudity...
http://www.gudlyf.com/2002/08/02/homemade-cleanroom/

Good luck!

vidas7de7jesus7
07-15-2006, 11:49 PM
that and you will void the warranty. Although this may not be your top priority, you should probably remember that.

Omega
07-15-2006, 11:52 PM
that and you will void the warranty. Although this may not be your top priority, you should probably remember that.


Dude, that's one of the points of modding, is to void the warranty, lol.

Slug Toy
07-16-2006, 01:26 AM
void like a turtle baby!




WHAT!?

DaveW
07-16-2006, 09:20 AM
that and you will void the warranty. Although this may not be your top priority, you should probably remember that.


Warranty, Warranty, warranty...ah, here it is:

Warrany: (War-ant-ee) (noun) : A fictional beast much like the Jabberwocky. Must be slain whenever encountered.

-Dave

qoou
07-16-2006, 09:59 AM
knowing from the previous topic. "is there going to be an expensive way to cool my HDD?" watercooling my friend.