Sony Develops Fluid-Filled Bags For Hard Disks

MsManhattan writes "Sony has filed for a US patent on a liquid-filled airbag that cushions hard disks from heavy shocks in portable electronic devices. 'The liquid used could be water or silicon oil,' and 'the electronics would of course be in a liquid-tight case.' Sony expects to use the technology in mobile devices such as cameras, media players, smartphones, and laptops." The article mentions a clever approach Sony has come up with to handle shocks of varying intensity.

Comments

Solid state

[BWJones]

I expect solid state storage to make redundant the need for liquid cushioning for hard drives and we won't be dealing with this cushioning problem for long. Already there have been a number of incidents where solid state memory is proving far more resistant to physical damage (shock and water immersion) than "rotational media" and with plummeting costs, consumers will have access to far more solid state media in the very near future anyway. Hey the people that are being really hard on their equipment are going with solid state storage, so why should not the rest of us for our iPods, laptops and iPhones?

Besides, I just don't know about fluid filled electronics. I've played around with liquid cooling in the past and have never been able to come up with a reliable (read: long term=years) solution that does not leak. We run our systems 24/7 and I thought that perhaps Apple had come up with a decent solution for liquid cooling on their older G5 towers, but we currently have a dual G5 in the shop that had managed to pee all over itself. Needless to say, that is a system that is awaiting a part from IBM and is down, not doing anything productive. Apple had the right idea in dumping the IBM and their liquid cooling necessity and I think that for the time being, I'll avoid drives bathed in liquid as well... Especially given that the articles focus is for equipment that receives more physical impacts than a desktop machine.

P.S.... Not sure why this was posted under YRO...

Re:Solid state

[russ1337]

Panasonic have had a gel 'bag' protecting their hard-drives in their Toughbooks for some time. Surely they've suitably protected their IP.

I even managed to find a picture of one on Ebay

FTA: Why is it called an "air bag" if it is filled with liquid?

Liquid-filled airbag?

[TeknoHog]

Now that's logical!

Re:Liquid-filled airbag?

[Dogtanian]

Now that's logical! That's what I thought; but perhaps the air they use is going to be very, *very* cold.

Re:Liquid-filled airbag?

[Stonent1]

God beat them to it, our brains are suspended in liquid.

OO?

[youthoftoday]

But will it hold linux?

My girlfriend's cell phone

[incog8723]

When I throw her cell phone against the pavement, I expect it to break.

Sigh.

Re:My girlfriend's cell phone

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you just throw like a girl.

Kiff

[prestonmichaelh]

Actually, I don't have bones. I am supported by a system of fluid-filled bladders...

Also An Anti-Piracy Measure

[CheeseburgerBrown]

Rumours are surfacing that Sony has also been employing similar fluid sacs to absorb the blow of piracy. These fluid sacs are called "people" and, by inserting them into a judicial system, they can be induced release quantities of money.

Re:Flash memory?

[CaptainPatent]

Camera's have HDD's? most of the time no, but almost every patent application attempts to patent the broadest possible terms so in this case if anyone ever (in the next 20 years) decides to incorporate a hdd and wants to add a shock absorber, they have to go through Sony. That is ignoring the fact that this is not patentable, but it's the intent.

Surely a cushion of water wouldn't protect something like a cell phone hitting the concrete You may be surprised at the amount of cushioning something like this could provide. If the normal deceleration of the hard drive without an insert occurs in 5ms (let's say metal to concrete.) With something like the insert, I would expect the full deceleration to occur over times like a quarter to even a half a second. Just in doing so you have reduced the amount of force induced on the drive by a factor of 50-100.
To demonstrate this in the real world, My last cellphone survived a fall of 70 feet onto a rock bed just because it hit on part of the plastic case that wasn't connected to the motherboard. If it would have hit on the bottom metal connector, it would have had very little or no chance. If instead there were a thin .5 inch layer of gel or liquid in a bag on the ground, I doubt it would have even received the chip that it did.

I was thinking...

[Azuma Hazuki]

Since this is Sony, are they going to call these "Douche Bags?"

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night.