Author Topic: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown  (Read 50679 times)

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Offline Robreeves

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #25 on: December 05, 2012, 09:58:26 pm »
Very similar to the first machine I was paid to program in 1973.  IBM 1440 (disk version of the 1401).  The disks were removable, 20000 sectors of 100 bytes = 2mb. We had 5 of them. Oh, and the big day is when we upgraded memory from 8k to 12k
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #26 on: December 05, 2012, 11:51:13 pm »
Dave! How can you not take apart the linear actuator?

I tried to lever it open with a big screwdriver, and I couldn't.

Dave.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #27 on: December 05, 2012, 11:54:57 pm »
As to the air lines, those are not Halon, but for pressurised clean dry air from a built in compressor and filter drier pack in the drive bay, used to circulate clean air into the drive case and remove the hot interior air.

I am assured by the original owner that it was connected to cooled pressurised halon. Yes, it's used for cooling, I forgot to mention that.

Dave.
 

Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #28 on: December 05, 2012, 11:58:10 pm »
as far as cost.. THis is not the worlds most expensive drive.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good keyword searchable video title  ;)

Dave.
 

Offline ModernRonin

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #29 on: December 06, 2012, 12:17:50 am »
Re: Halon

For those of you who haven't played the classic: http://markdamonhughes.com/Halon/
 

Offline nighthawke

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #30 on: December 06, 2012, 02:25:48 am »
My impression is that they used a manifold system subsisting of air for regular operation, then switched to nitrogen or Halon in case of a disaster while the drives went into SCRAM mode.  And yes, there's an emergency shutdown procedure that converts the drive motors into magnetic brakes, stopping the drives within a few seconds.  They used a magnetic brake on the large Burroughs 10MB fixed head drives to stop it. Hell, they had to since the hub itself was 30lb cast bronze.

I did a dig and found the specs on the 3390 system.

Interface: Gen 1 SCSI or proprietary SSA. The arrays were interconnected using fiber optic ESCON cables.

1.5 ms for single platter access, average seek time 12ms, 23ms maximum.

Capacity was 792 MB or 1,585 MB

They had a encryption system built into the storage array, using 38 byte keys. There's tables for calculating capacity with or without these keys.
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/dasd/reference_summary/GX26-4577-0_3390_Reference_Summary_Jun89.pdf

The following review was done by Performance Associates. They classified the storage array as a "gap filler" bulk storage system, not a DASD as IBM had touted it to be, and they found issues with the system as noted in the documentation. This was written up back in 1995 when the trend for storage was being shifted to smaller RAID 5 Fibre Channel,  NAS or SAN arrays.
http://www.perfassoc.com/pdf/390sampleprofile.pdf
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #31 on: December 06, 2012, 04:34:40 am »
If it had gas cooling it would not have used Halon, more likely R11, as it is available with incredible purity. Halon is not that filtered or pure.


So as you are in AUS you will have to pay around AU$100 000 in carbon tax for that sniff of gas that was left in the housing........... Next time you get the aircon in the car regassed remember most of the price is that.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2012, 04:38:36 am by SeanB »
 

Offline digsys

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #32 on: December 06, 2012, 07:58:00 am »
Hiya guys, MOAHDD donor here, and it's past history.
While I admit that years of LSD use in the 60s and 70s has pretty much fried my memory, most the details are accurate, maybe just mixed up.
My partners and I had several big-ass HDDs, some older and some much larger. So the 10/20MB capacity must have been of the others, my mistake.
My factory was next door to the site, so techs would drop in, for convenience. I visited the site on a couple occasions, and was always
apprehensive of the safety measures, so I stayed away. As for the cooling system. I recall that it was mentioned that at THIS site, running plain
cool air was not adequate, plus there was a fear of internal combustion, so they came up with a chilled halon (mix), with white colouring? and a
distinct smell (for safety). I'd cracked open 2-3 in all, but the first time I did, I was standing directly over the HDD when I cracked it. A burst of white?
gas whooshed out, and that's when I recalled the safety instructions. I held my breath and ran for it.
Maybe it was from another installation, but I don't think so, but then I could have sworn I remembered it as one of the 20MBs.
Facts are all there, just stick them together yourselves :-) It's GREAT to see members adding to the history.

NOTE: It may not be the world's most expensive drive, but note "TEARDOWN". Until then, it stands :-)
PS: Most of the others were converted to wall clocks and such, some still run today.
Hello <tap> <tap> .. is this thing on?
 

Offline Cozzmo

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #33 on: December 06, 2012, 08:36:47 am »
Also, what's with all those holes in the disk spacers? Is there some way for air (or halon) to flow into the center of the spindle and be propelled outward across the disks much like in a Tesla turbine?

Most likely weight reduction for the rotational mass as they would not need to be totally solid for any strength reasons.
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #34 on: December 06, 2012, 11:49:38 am »
Is that actuator held shut with a magnet. There must be a powerful magnet in there somewhere to shift that mass at the speeds it has to.
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #35 on: December 06, 2012, 03:54:31 pm »
The centre is a massive cobalt magnet.
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #36 on: December 06, 2012, 04:28:19 pm »
Samarium cobalt to be precise. These things are so strong that , if you put two of them 1 inch apart and let them snap together they shatter ... NEVER EVER put you hands between two of those. If they jump at each other it will seriously hurt ! It may even break bones i. Your fingers if the magnets are large enough.
Professional Electron Wrangler.
Any comments, or points of view expressed, are my own and not endorsed , induced or compensated by my employer(s).
 

Offline blc

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #37 on: December 06, 2012, 05:02:20 pm »
I wish I had one of those plates  :) perfect material for wall LED clock
with tiny smd led's, no spinning parts... blend of old and new technology :D

Funny thing, I said more or less exactly the same thing to my other half last night; even more surprisingly, she actually agreed with me!
 

Offline Zad

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #38 on: December 07, 2012, 04:52:56 am »
i just posted some technical info under the video . not going to repost here. now, as far as cost.. THis is not the worlds most expensive drive. That would have been The RAMAC ( the original harddisk... )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305_RAMAC


1955 eh. To be fair, they do say the first moving head storage device. Manchester University's Baby computer had drum storage in 1949.

http://tommythomas.org.uk/Manchester/manchester_drums.html

I remember some time around 1981 or so, going to the county computer centre (West Yorkshire, England) and being given a guided tour by a chap my parents knew. After showing me the (even then archaic) punched card reader and phenomenally fast and loud line printer, he took the back off a removable storage drive to show me the internals. You could clearly see the linear motor actuators.

At that time, I seem to remember the disk packs were about 400MB or so, which seemed phenomenally huge when home computers were usually 16KB-64KB with <100KB floppy drives. I still have a 10MB "full size" ST412 (or similar) disk drive somewhere.


Offline george graves

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #39 on: December 08, 2012, 02:38:36 am »
Lol - it was funny to see Dave so puzzled by that temp sensor sticker.

That temperature reading strip is nothing more than an a aquarium type temp sensor:




Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #40 on: December 08, 2012, 03:58:01 am »
Lol - it was funny to see Dave so puzzled by that temp sensor sticker.
That temperature reading strip is nothing more than an a aquarium type temp sensor:

Yes, everyone says they have seen them on aquariums and home-brew beer. I'm into neither, so have never seen them.

Dave.
 

Offline george graves

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #41 on: December 08, 2012, 04:07:41 am »
I had totally forgotten about them.  Not a bad idea for something like that.

Offline labarowski

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #42 on: December 08, 2012, 04:50:09 am »
I was going to chime in about the temperature sticker being for an aquarium but george graves beet me to it. I guess that a technician was concerned about temperature and placed it there. It doesn't seem like it would do much good though. Their peak temperature is not very high.
 

Offline george graves

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #43 on: December 08, 2012, 04:59:38 am »
I'd assume you could get them custom made for what ever range you need.

IIRC - they are a two layers of plastic with heat-sealed little individual chambers filled with liquid.  The some kind of chemistry voodoo happens to make them change from black to a color.

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #44 on: December 08, 2012, 05:35:46 am »
They actually use cholesterols ( the same as what is in your arteries) as the fill. they have a polarising front like a LCD, and the cholesterol s are different types, so that as they hit a certain narrow temperature range the optical twisting that they do of polarised light ( from the front filter) is 45 degrees. the back reflector then reflects, it goes through another 45 degree shift then it can go out and you can see the back reflector and the markings. At higher or lower temps there is either too much or too little phase shift, so it remains black. The colours come from fringing  as the polarisation approaches the 90 degree point. Totally passive, absolutely no moving parts and reversible.

the other variant more commonly used in engineering is a max indicating type, which has small  black coloured wax dots inside a carrier, so that as the wax melts it is wicked away in a surrounding reservoir and exposes a coloured backing that shows the top temperature reached. Once use only, but quite good as a log of overheating or max temp in say a heatsink during operation, where you either cannot or do not want or can use a data logger.
 

Offline Zad

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #45 on: December 08, 2012, 06:34:38 am »
I remember seeing those thermometer strips in the RS (Radio Spares back then) catalogue in the 1980s. I tried to persuade my dad to buy some, but for some reason he refused. Probably the phenomenally high price back then.


Offline bitwelder

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #46 on: December 08, 2012, 08:42:48 am »
Yes, everyone says they have seen them on aquariums and home-brew beer. I'm into neither, so have never seen them.

Dave.
I worked in a computer datacenter and I've seen them attached to several racks there, especially in the aisles where the server density was relatively high.
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #47 on: December 08, 2012, 10:34:25 am »
We had a simpler one, one heatsink ran so hot that the most common fault was the BUX20's in it unsoldering themselves....... Limited space, and no way to redesign...... Would have loved to have modern MOSFETS in there, they would have handled the job with no problems.
 

Offline Hypernova

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #48 on: December 10, 2012, 02:39:07 am »
I thought about getting some of those stickers for heat sink temp monitoring and in the course of my search found this place:
http://www.telatemp.com/p/492/
16 steps of 5C from 25 to 100 ought to do it for most people.

That's probably the true source for the majority of the sellers out there. At $40 for a pack of 20 it isn't that much, and they have variants reaching 120C. There are shops on the web that resell them at single quantities.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2012, 02:43:10 am by Hypernova »
 

Offline jabramo

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Re: EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown
« Reply #49 on: December 11, 2012, 05:49:13 pm »
Holy smokes this teardown is getting tons of attention! Front page Gizmodo, Extreme Tech and Hackaday
 


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