[BC] Comparing computers & parts

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

I think most all the hard disks are now made by the same
company(s). Mechanical is made in some Chinese back-yard
company, PWB is made in some Chinese front-yard company,
ICs are made in some Chinese side yard, etc.

They are assembled in Singapore and sent to the US
under different labels. The last hard disk drive made
within the US was made near Boulder, Colorado.
I forget its name, but they went out of business
fifteen years ago. They are now all the same.

Basically, a hard disk that is kept running will
run until the next power failure. It's during startup
after the power returns, that it probably will fail
to spin up.

You can usually coax them to start by shaking them in
a rotary motion in the plane of the disc platters. That
lets you boot the machine and  copy everything
to another drive.

If machines are turned ON and OFF, the drives
fail in about two or three years. It really doesn't
make any difference about the name on the label.

All "modern" hard drives use "oilite" bearings.
These are sintered bronze bearings loaded with
light machine oil. The oil will eventually seep
out and be retained in a cup-shaped thing at
the end of the spindle. Centrifugal force will
keep the oil in the cup and not allow it onto
the platters IF the drive remains spinning.

Once the drive is allowed to spin down, the
platters can become contaminated with oil
and the heads will fail to fly, preventing
spin-up. If you can get the discs to spin
up, centrifugal force will spin the oil drops
off the platter(s) and the heads should
start to fly again.

This doesn't mean that there is no difference
in drives, though. SATA (Serial ATA) drives are
the most expensive and provide the highest speed.
SCSI drives are not quite as fast as SATA and
they may be discontinued because of this.
They are now mid-range in price. The cheap
drives are IDE and EIDI drives. They suck. 

--
Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Read about my book
http://www.LymanSchool.org


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: WFIFeng at aol.com
> In a message dated 10/29/2007 2:41:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> rcarpen1 at verizon.net writes:
> 
> > Since then I have had two HD failures, both Western Digital.  I still 
> >  have a 2 Gby HD they furnished under warranty.   WILLIE: DO YOU WANT THE 
> >  2 GBY HD, NEVER USED? (free)
> 
> Free is good. :) When it dies (~2 years?) I'll rip the magnets out. ;)
> 
> Problem is... WHEN will it die? Middle of something important, most likely. 
> HOW will it die? Most likely suddenly and without warning. That's WD for ya.
> 
> Willie...
> 
> 
> 
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