inside of a harddrive

[jinxy]

I recently cracked open an old dead 80GB HDD. There is a small black box about the size of a die. Inside of this little box there are small black balls, a bit smaller than a BB. What are they, and what is their function? Just curious.
Thanks -J

 

[SC Tom]

I recently cracked open an old dead 80GB HDD. There is a small black box about the size of a die. Inside of this little
box there are small black balls, a bit smaller than a BB. What are they, and what is their function? Just curious.
Thanks -J

Are they soft, like fabric balls? I opened a drive years ago that had a white box with white fabric-like balls. I asked
one of the gurus at work and he said he'd read somewhere that it was to keep static electricity from building up inside
the drive from the moving platters. I never researched it any further than that.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

I recently cracked open an old dead 80GB HDD. There is a small black box about the size of a die. Inside of this little box there are small black balls, a bit smaller than a BB. What are they, and what is their function? Just curious.

A friend told me the story of a car owner who had been bothered by a
noise ever since he bought his car. The car had been bought new.

One day he went looking for the source of the problem and found a golf
ball with a note attached. It said, "Haha, you found it."

- Franc Zabkar

 

[Rene Lamontagne]

"SC Tom" wrote in message

I recently cracked open an old dead 80GB HDD. There is a small black box
about the size of a die. Inside of this little box there are small black
balls, a bit smaller than a BB. What are they, and what is their function?
Just curious.
Thanks -J

Are they soft, like fabric balls? I opened a drive years ago that had a
white box with white fabric-like balls. I asked
one of the gurus at work and he said he'd read somewhere that it was to keep
static electricity from building up inside
the drive from the moving platters. I never researched it any further than
that.
--
SC Tom


Might they be desiccant pellets? (only a guess.)

Regards, Rene

 

[Strobe]

Are they soft, like fabric balls? I opened a drive years ago that had a white box with white fabric-like balls. I asked
one of the gurus at work and he said he'd read somewhere that it was to keep static electricity from building up inside
the drive from the moving platters. I never researched it any further than that.

Hard drives hate FOD.
AFAIK all drives contain a filter to take any accidental crud out of the
internal airflow. (In many modern ST or WD drives it's a small rectangular
piece of stiff fabric mounted to intercept air near the rim of the disk).
I've seen these when I take dead drives apart to recover the magnets, which are
very powerful and fun for kids to play with - while incidentally ensuring the
disks become totally unreadable...
Most drives also have some kind of filter on the pressure-equalising air vent.

Maybe the boxes are the air filters?

 

[Flasherly]

Hard drives hate FOD. Maybe the boxes are the air filters?

Makes sense. A biohazard cleanroom aspect often emphasised when
around the actual manufacturing or HD recovery stations. Reading once
how, at the Dresden location perhaps, one of the German plants for
manufacturing AMD processors was prep'ed -- what went into the
concrete slab alone prior to erecting facilities proper. A thickness
and evenness required first for equipment, monitors and measures at
working near to molecular levels. . . .Actually, even at that early
aspect, wrapped under secrecy provisions for protecting AMD's
corporate entity.

 

[jinxy]

Makes sense. A biohazard cleanroom aspect often emphasised when
around the actual manufacturing or HD recovery stations. Reading once
how, at the Dresden location perhaps, one of the German plants for
manufacturing AMD processors was prep'ed -- what went into the
concrete slab alone prior to erecting facilities proper. A thickness
and evenness required first for equipment, monitors and measures at
working near to molecular levels. . . .Actually, even at that early
aspect, wrapped under secrecy provisions for protecting AMD's
corporate entity.

Under closer scrutiny, these little bb's have the feel of a graphite type substance. I plan to open up another dead drive, from another maker to see if they are also in there. I may even go as far as to contact the makers and ask them the purpose of the tiny bb's
-J

 

[Paul]

Under closer scrutiny, these little bb's have the feel of a graphite
type substance. I plan to open up another dead drive, from another maker
to see if they are also in there. I may even go as far as to contact
the makers and ask them the purpose of the tiny bb's

-J

It could be activated charcoal. Which is good at adsorbing organic
chemical vapors.

http://www.techimo.com/photo/data/500/medium/cimg0348.jpg

Paul