[mythtv-users] OEM vs. Retail Drives - Was: Dell dual-quad...

[Calvin Dodge]

On 10/25/07, David Brodbeck <gull at gull.us> wrote:
>
> Hard disks are sturdier than we sometimes give them credit for,
> though.  Ever looked at the shock specs for hard disks?  They're
> surprisingly high.  One Seagate data sheet I have handy gives limits
> of 300 Gs non-operating and 63 Gs operating!  Of course, if it's
> inadequately packed it could still be crushed or the circuit board
> physically damaged.  I've gotten boxes from UPS that looked like
> accordions.

The shock when a hard drive hits a solid object is possibly higher
than one might expect.

Since solid objects don't deform much, the deceleration period is
really short. If an object falls for 1/2 second (4 feet), then
decelerates in 1 millisecond, it has suffered a 500g shock.
(.500/.001);

I killed a hard drive in my mom's computer some time ago - the hard
drive was sitting loosely ("temporarily") in its cage as I moved the
computer from horizontal to vertical a few times while messing with
its innards. Those repeated shocks from bouncing inside its cage were
sufficient to ruin the drive.

Considering how carefully retail hard drives are cushioned, I'd be
very leery of any drive which had been shipped without padding. And
"loose in peanuts" wouldn't assure me much - if the drive shifted in
the box enough to touch an wall, it could suffer a fatal blow when
that wall hit something hard.

>TigerDirect has sent me drives in antistatic plastic shells,

Aside - just based on my anecdotal experience, I'll never buy anything
more complicated than RAM from TigerDirect, after having eaten $600 in
non-functional equipment from them (the worst retun policy I've ever
tried to deal with).

Calvin