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I worked at a small web hosting company back then, and we used a bunch of IBM Deathstar's. They certainly lived up to their name! I disassembled one just to see

I worked at a small web hosting company back then, and we used a bunch of IBM Deathstar's. They certainly lived up to their name! I disassembled one just to see what went wrong, and I found the cause (of that drive's failure, at least). Here's a list of terms for reference: http://data-recovery-tips.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/hard-disk-data-recovery-tips-450.jpg http://data-recovery-tips.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/h... At some point, the bearing that serves as the pivot that the actuator arm and actuator attach to, is attached to the chassis of the hard drive with a bolt on the bottom of the drive. At that time, most drives also had a bolt that went through the cover. The Deathstar did not. It was only attached to the chassis. Which was fine, and that's the method commonly used since then. This particular drive had no thread lock on the bolt, and it had come loose, leading to a catastrophic head crash. I don't know if other Deathstar's suffered the same fate for the same reason. The Wikipedia article on the subject says it was due to the magnetic coating of the platters coming off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskstar

opheliate 5y ago
Ah man, there’s something about reading about physical hard drive failure that really makes me cringe. Really beautifully intricate technology, but man, when things come out of place…
- bombcar 5y ago
  Hard drives are one of those pieces of precision engineering that we encounter on a regular basis - it's quite amazing they work at all given the conditions we submit them to.
r1ch 5y ago
I have a recording from one of my drives which I believe was a failing Deathstar. Not a pleasant sound to experience. https://r-1.ch/hdd.mp3 https://r-1.ch/hdd.mp3 (warning, loud)
- geocrasher 5y ago
  I have some sounds on soundcloud, two different drives failing: https://soundcloud.com/ryan-flowers-916961339/sets/hard-drive-death-sounds https://soundcloud.com/ryan-flowers-916961339/sets/hard-driv... The associated blog post: https://miscdotgeek.com/adventures-in-hard-drives/ https://miscdotgeek.com/adventures-in-hard-drives/
denton-scratch 5y ago
Back in the day, my employer sold "disk cartridges", which were 24"diameter magnetic-coated aluminium disks in a plastic case. Head crashes were fairly common,, and made a horrible noise. We'd open the case of a crashed cartridge, extract the platter, and hang it on the wall; the crash would produce a rather spectacular sunburst pattern in the magnetic coating.
- Y_Y 5y ago
  Cool! Does anyone have a picture of this? I always thought hard disk platters looked especially cool compared to other storage media like floppies or CDs or flash stuff.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    I did a hunt; I didn't find one. But I found an article about that kind of disk drive; it's 14", not 24", apparently. So I submitted the article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27423640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27423640

opheliate 5y ago

Ah man, there’s something about reading about physical hard drive failure that really makes me cringe. Really beautifully intricate technology, but man, when things come out of place…

bombcar 5y ago
Hard drives are one of those pieces of precision engineering that we encounter on a regular basis - it's quite amazing they work at all given the conditions we submit them to.

r1ch 5y ago

I have a recording from one of my drives which I believe was a failing Deathstar. Not a pleasant sound to experience. https://r-1.ch/hdd.mp3 https://r-1.ch/hdd.mp3 (warning, loud)

geocrasher 5y ago
I have some sounds on soundcloud, two different drives failing: https://soundcloud.com/ryan-flowers-916961339/sets/hard-drive-death-sounds https://soundcloud.com/ryan-flowers-916961339/sets/hard-driv... The associated blog post: https://miscdotgeek.com/adventures-in-hard-drives/ https://miscdotgeek.com/adventures-in-hard-drives/

denton-scratch 5y ago

Back in the day, my employer sold "disk cartridges", which were 24"diameter magnetic-coated aluminium disks in a plastic case. Head crashes were fairly common,, and made a horrible noise. We'd open the case of a crashed cartridge, extract the platter, and hang it on the wall; the crash would produce a rather spectacular sunburst pattern in the magnetic coating.

Y_Y 5y ago
Cool! Does anyone have a picture of this? I always thought hard disk platters looked especially cool compared to other storage media like floppies or CDs or flash stuff.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  I did a hunt; I didn't find one. But I found an article about that kind of disk drive; it's 14", not 24", apparently. So I submitted the article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27423640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27423640