Slashdot Mirror
New Lubricant Leads To Faster Hard Drives
azav writes "We all know about Moore's Law as it applies to chip speed but little attention is publicly made to the challenges of increasing speed in hard drives. A recent discovery in polyester (yes, polyester, you disco baby) lubricants will allow for faster and longer lasting hard drives."
But will they make it to market before memory cards large enough and cheap enough to feasibly replace hard drives altogether do?
Art Schools Dietzilla
The oddest materials pop up for load bearing duties.
"Felt bearings" have been used in the automotive industry for years.
Especially in rack and pinion steering system where lateral forces are not so high.
Lubricants for the felt material include oil and graphite powder, or run dry.
While more durable bearings such as needle roller, bronze sleeve, and teflon bushings, may be the preference of performance applications, ease of fitment, damping ability, and cost, still ensures felt bearings are used today, both in automotive and other industrial machinery. It is very possible, you have owned a car with one or moore felt bearings somewhere in the steering system.
The properties of synthetic material as a bearing surface have been used and far back as 1950's(and maybe beyond).
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
You've got to admit that the innuendo in that headline is... um... somewhat unsubtle.
To be honest, I always suspected the term "hard drive" was invented as a sick inside joke by computer geeks, (along with a few other very suspect phrases).
But what really convinced me was when I went to South Africa and discovered that a 3.5" floppy disk is known over there as a "stiffy disk". Ostensibly, the original idea was to differentiate them from the older 5.25" floppies, but you've got to admit that whoever came up with that one must have known what he was doing.
I'm not usually one to laugh at blatant innuendo, but the first few times I heard that phrase being used, it absolutely cracked me up - not just for the phrase itself, but for the fact that no-one else seemed to get the joke. To them the phrase is completely natural: A South African computer geek can get away with telling people that he's got a stiffy in his pocket, and it won't even raise a smirk.
(having said that, it's been a while since I've used a stif... uh, a 3.5" floppy, so I can't be sure the phrase is still current - SA readers, feel free to correct me)
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
I've often wondered about the rate of evaporation on fluid-bearing HDs. Running at high temperatures, even the lowest level of evaporation will mean a loss of lubricant over the years. Even inside the semi-sealed chamber of the drive, each on-off cycle will mean that the drive exhales the evaporated lubricant and the cooling pattern of a turned-off drive will mean condensation of lubricant on the inside shell of the case.
Ball-bearings (well-designed ones at least) can last virtually forever. I wonder if the same can be said for fluid bearings?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I'm told that Australians have a similar reaction when they hear people talking about getting "root access"...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It is surprising how often improvements in our computer technology comes from relatively mundane sources. For example, much of the reason that Moore's Law has continued to hold is the way that the mechanical engineers have been able to constantly improve our ability to position things accurately. Masks and wafers must be positioned with astonishing (at least to me) accuracy relative to each other in order to allow creation of 90 nm features.