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Clear Hard Drive Mods
Baloo Ursidae writes "In the spirit of the case window kit and the clear PC case, there are people who have made hard drive windows, and apparently they're not alone."
That ladies and gentlemen, takes balls.
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Because when you start using transparent mods to your PC, you're blowing away any kind of FCC rating it has. When the radio starts getting static and the cell phone drops connections and the portable phone/802.11b/x10 camera quits working, put the metal back around the case.
See them metal prongs all over the place around the case and seams? That's to prevent signals from the motherboard/CPU/hard drive from interfering with everything around it.
there's just something about people saying "Cover the platter part with plastic wrap and put it in a safe spot" and telling me to Dremel my hard drive that tells me they have not thought this out very well. considering that a speck of dust can be disastrous to a drive, i don't think i really want to make a pile of metal shavings inside and put it all back together.
Am I the only one who thinks this is an incredibly stupid thing to do? Considering that these drives are put together under strict clean-room conditions, wouldn't it be rather foolish to open one up in your basement or garage? Also, note the use of a DREMEL tool on the case cover... just what I want to be doing to a cover for a hard drive that contains multiple high speed platters: spewing little bits of metal dust all about the place.
No matter how well you vacuum this off, undoubtedly there will be debris remaining somewhere. Now imagine what those platters will look like after a few days at 7200RPM with the little bits of metal dust. This is the dumbest idea for a case mod I've seen yet. A joke perhaps?
And the fellow that did the mod knows that. Yeah, it's not the smartest thing to do, but you guys are idiots if you think you are the only ones who don't know the dangers. Please don't post any more comments about dust and RF.
It's not real smart, IMHO, to lower a pickup and mod it to hell, but the guys that do that like the way it looks. They aren't doing it so their vehicle will be faster. Just so it will look better.
That is what these guys are doing. Let them have their fun. I wouldn't do it, but I like the way it looks.
What about the guy who bent the platters and shone a laser pointer at the drive as it spun?
I'm thinking you could do the same thing with this mod - but instead of bending the platters and killing the drive, shine the laser pointer onto the point where the heads move back and forth, or onto the nuts that hold the platters in place.
You still get the laser light show, but you might also get to use the drive.
(No, I wouldn't recommend it for anything other than a swap partition either, but it sounds like a neat extension to what's already a pretty insane mod.)
The riskiest part of the mod looks like the stage where the plastic wrap lies on the disk. I'd have pulled the plastic wrap tight across the surface of the drive, just in case any oils on the plastic wrap find their way onto the platters.
One other thing I'd suggest for this mod is to leave a portion of the drive's housing intact, and mount that funny little air filter on it. Drives need to "breathe" through that filter. I suppose the risk of doing the mod in a non-cleanroom environment shortens the life of the drive to the point that the air filter is a moot point...
Finally, there may be additional risk from the outgassing of components in the silicone/epoxy/goop used to affix the plexi to the drive housing. God only knows what winds up being deposited on the drive platters over the next six months.
Still, a damn cool mod, and something to try some weekend when I've got nothing to do and an old 1.2G drive I don't need... and, of course, a modded case to show off the results.
What don't you design a clear top drive case and maybe maxtor will start to sell hard drives in this factor. As volitile as the drive market obviously is, its good to have an edge. Plus on a 80G+ drive I would pay $15-20 more per drive...and your extra effort would be minimal for the extra change. Use glass though, cause plexiglass scratches too easy. I will be looking for these in the office depot before long...get to it, or maxtor could direct sell these to reap all the profits :).