EEVblog #395 - World's Most Expensive Hard Drive Teardown

• #50 Reply
  Posted by cwalex on 12 Dec, 2012 11:16
• It was a really nice teardown as usual by Dave but I like the more standard off the shelf kinds of tear downs as I learn more about product design (do's and don'ts) etc  but honestly I would rather see dave get heaps of exposure so he can make more out of his new full time gig! than just see more stuff that I personally like to see.
  
  Good videos as always Dave! Thanks for all that you do for us
• #51 Reply
  Posted by EEVblog on 12 Dec, 2012 11:49
• Quote from: jabramo on 11 Dec, 2012 17:49

  Holy smokes this teardown is getting tons of attention! Front page Gizmodo, Extreme Tech and Hackaday
  

  
  Yeah, probably my most popular video to date in terms views in such a short time.
  
  Dave.
• #52 Reply
  Posted by JoannaK on 12 Dec, 2012 22:19
• Was expecting something a bit bigger... But I'd assume there's not many of those PDP-8 era (or older) hard drive units available. We (bunch of Uni students) did purchase one (with PDP-8) about 30+ odd years ago, not that we'd needed but it was kinds funky to have fridge/Freezer size HD system with removeable platters.
  
  Not sure where those parts are these days.. Not even sure if I could find any photos of the system.
• #53 Reply
  Posted by alanb on 17 Dec, 2012 12:06
• Quote

  Posted by: JoannaK
  « on: December 12, 2012, 10:19:22 PM » Insert Quote
  Was expecting something a bit bigger... But I'd assume there's not many of those PDP-8 era (or older) hard drive units available. We (bunch of Uni students) did purchase one (with PDP-8) about 30+ odd years ago, not that we'd needed but it was kinds funky to have fridge/Freezer size HD system with removeable platters.

  
  Try Googling CDC Hawk.
• #54 Reply
  Posted by JoannaK on 18 Dec, 2012 01:54
• Quote from: alanb on 17 Dec, 2012 12:06

  Quote

  Posted by: JoannaK
  « on: December 12, 2012, 10:19:22 PM » Insert Quote
  Was expecting something a bit bigger... But I'd assume there's not many of those PDP-8 era (or older) hard drive units available. We (bunch of Uni students) did purchase one (with PDP-8) about 30+ odd years ago, not that we'd needed but it was kinds funky to have fridge/Freezer size HD system with removeable platters.

  
  Try Googling CDC Hawk.
  

  
  Something like that for sure.. Kinda scary when one starts to think about those platters turning ..
• #55 Reply
  Posted by alanb on 18 Dec, 2012 12:53
• Quote

  Kinda scary when one starts to think about those platters turning ..

  The most scary part was the voice coil / actuator mechanism. I once met a service engineer who had lost three fingers on his right hand when a the voice coil was actuated with his hand in the way.
• #56 Reply
  Posted by pista24 on 23 Dec, 2012 19:35
• Hi,
  
  which videocam do you use to record this video? Especially macro mode for magnetic heads.
  
  Thanks.
  
• #57 Reply
  Posted by SL4P on 01 Apr, 2014 11:38
• Around a decade before this drive, I was working on DEC hardware, and specifically the RK05 (2.5MB) and RL01/2 (5/10MB) drives attached to LSI-11 systems.
  It's interesting to see the similarities and throwback concepts - but despite being built like battleships they were extremely fragile in transit and in use.
  Don't underestimate the voice-coil positioners. They would seek sequential tracks in under 2mS, and to any track under 6mS with a LOT of force. The'd have your finger f it was in the way!.
  A colleague had his flashy bling ring melted onto hois finger by shorting across the power supply to the positioner... !   An optical strip encoder provided the track position feedback to the positioning electronics.
  The RL0x drives were a bit more friendly - higher data density / slightly slower seek speed, and used another strategy common back then - with one surface pre-formatted with index data (effectively hard sectored)
  
  Great to have the memories brought up !
• #58 Reply
  Posted by aqarwaen on 02 Sep, 2016 21:30
• does anybody knows how you recover data from theys??my workplace got 2 theys kinds hdd.only issue is ,computer what used them are dead.both hdd are located at basement..any  clue how can i get data from them and connect with pc??they mostly collect dust there
• #59 Reply
  Posted by Brumby on 03 Sep, 2016 02:37
• My first suggestion is to find somewhere that still has one of these running ... probably a museum by now ... and see if they would be prepared to try and load it.
  
  But I think you will have another problem.
  
  I take it those drives haven't been accessed for some years - so I would highly doubt they would be readable.  The magnetic domains have likely deteriorated over time.
• #60 Reply
  Posted by digsys on 03 Sep, 2016 07:40
• Now we're going back. I can't recall if it was a SCSI or MFM interface, but you may find an old PC that still has a ISA (16?) bus. If so, it should be pretty easy,
  especially with a disk recovery program. ie RSTUDIO r-tools tech
  In cases where the hardware had failed, we used to use a chemical to "stain" the magnetic material, then high res photograph it. Someone had a program
  that just re-encoded the headers etc, Most / all of the professional data recovery companies use that technique. On those large platters and such low data
  density, it is quite easy.
• #61 Reply
  Posted by Fungus on 03 Sep, 2016 08:43
• I'm sure there'll be a USB adapter cable somewhere on eBay.