Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Magnetic Wobbles Cause Hard Drive Failure

Posted by samzenpus on from the shake-it-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to this report by IT PRO, scientists working at the University of California have discovered the main reason of hard drive failure. According to researchers, some materials used in hard drives are better at damping spin precession than others. Spin precession of magnetic material effects its neighbors' polarity and this can spread and cause sections of hard drives to spontaneously change polarity and lose data. This is known as a magnetic avalanche. So next time Windows fails to start, you'll know why!"

3 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pretty sure this will also keep Linux from starting!

  2. SOME types of failures... by DTemp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So this claims that most hard drive *failure* is caused by this. Now, I'm sure this causes isolated data loss here and there, and maybe I've had a different experience than the average person, but most of my hard drive failures in the past had loud screeching or clicking noises. I dont think this was caused by magnetic spin!

  3. Hmmm... by Edward+Teach · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So next time Windows fails to start, you'll know why!

    Pretty sure that's not the main reason. :-(

    --

    Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.