10 replies to this topic

[Mike Rochip]

I found this on the page hazelnut mentioned in her post Be careful with your flash/thumb drive and thought it was interesting. Might be worth a look if you're curious how a hard drive operates and what is inside one. It's surprisingly simple for such a precise and important piece of hardware.

Inside Your Hard Drive

[kobrakommander56]

i ve taken a 2gb harddrive desk and chucked it at somone like a frisbee.

[Eldmannen]

Many many years ago, I picked up a old 80's hard drive. It was bigger than todays 3½" hard drives. It contained big orange metallic that was very hard, and I tossed them around, and threw them, they was very hard!
Makes me think of those discs that the Predator uses.

It also has powerful magnets.

[zaphirer]

I've got one of the discs that they use for hard drives (Dad picked it up at his work @ Hitachi)... nice and shiny, could use it as a mirror

[burtman]

Curiosity got the better of me once, and using only brute force and a philips screwdriver I demolished a HD.

Amazing the technology that is in them, and how (almost) indestructable the discs are. I was not expecting a solid material (for some reason I was thinking floppy-like !), and especially that it feels like glass... delicate but strong.
But they don't seem to break by bending them ... but, just like glass they will melt in a fire. (well I was sure I couldn't put it in a recycle bin lol )

[Humpty]

Think I may have posted this hard drive seek demo a while back but some may have missed it.

The speed and precision of the seeks makes you appreciate the technology put into a hard drive.

Hard drive seek demo

[TheFiresInTheSky]

thats pretty fast!
is it true that if you move your computer around while its running, it could damage the HD?

[Humpty]

I thing the seek arm floats on a cushion of air so any jerky movements can cause it to touch the platter resulting in damage.

Best to be safe than sorry and turn off before moving.

[TheFiresInTheSky]

well, curiosity got the best of me tonight.
i had to finally see what was inside a HD.
i started taking it apart then i pried on that arm because it was in the way and it shot up in the air then came back down and landed right next to our cat!
i got inside it and noticed that theres actually 2 disks in mine.
same with you guys?
(it was an older computer)

[Mike Rochip]

That sure sounded like an easy question. The answer was kind of hard to find for some reason. Maybe everybody already knows the answer except for you and me . Then again I've never heard anyone mention 2 disks in a hard drive or seen a picture of one that has 2 disks.

I wasn't doing too well searching for "2 disks inside hard drive." Then I thought of searching for "2 platters inside hard drive." I figured if a hard drive could have 2 platters it could have 2 disks. Turns out platter and disk mean the same thing. So yes there can be two or more disks in a hard drive.



I like how you guys are coming up with new uses far an old hard drive like a mirror, Frisbee, various forms of weaponry, etc. Kind of like a Swiss Army Knife of computer hardware, lol.

This guy came up with a pretty cool idea.

[TheFiresInTheSky]

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This guy came up with a pretty cool idea.

thats pretty cool.
hes got too much time on his hands.

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It contained big orange metallic that was very hard, and I tossed them around, and threw them, they was very hard!

orange? never seen those before.

does anyone else think that they got the idea of the CD from the HD's?