28 May
2007
28 May
'07
3:23 a.m.
Do temperatures need to be a concern when storing hard drives? I'm
looking at a temperature range for storage of about 50-110 (obviously
over the course of a year). I've been keeping my collection of
drives at home, but think it's about time to start thinking about
putting them into storage.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
28 May
28 May
3:32 a.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
Do temperatures need to be a concern when storing hard
drives? I'm
looking at a temperature range for storage of about 50-110 (obviously
over the course of a year). I've been keeping my collection of drives
at home, but think it's about time to start thinking about putting them
into storage.
If you can find manufacturer's datasheets, they almost always give
storage environment specs.
I store disks in my garage, which gets down to ~40F and up to ~130F.
It doesn't seem to raise the failure rate.
Doc
11:05 a.m.
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
Do temperatures need to be a concern when storing hard
drives? I'm
looking at a temperature range for storage of about 50-110 (obviously
over the course of a year). I've been keeping my collection of
drives at home, but think it's about time to start thinking about
putting them into storage.
Some drives have rubber parts that will degrade more rapidly in
high-heat, high-ozone environments. (Can you hear me thinking "RD53"?
Although actually lots of MFM and other drives are similar inside.)
Temperature/humidity changes that can cause condensation to form
are not the best thing either. This may be much less of a problem
with smaller modern drives with less thermal mass.
Tim.
4:44 p.m.
On 28 May 2007 at 7:05, Tim Shoppa wrote:
Temperature/humidity changes that can cause
condensation to form
are not the best thing either. This may be much less of a problem
with smaller modern drives with less thermal mass.
I suspect that much of this problem could be alleviated during
storage by hermetically sealing the drives in plastic bags (can you
say "Seal A Meal"?) during storage--although one might have to deal
with residual moisture in the air that's present during sealing.
Perhaps adding some dessicant to the bag might help.
Cheers,
Chuck
6:03 p.m.
On 28 May 2007 at 7:05, Tim Shoppa wrote:
I would then be worried about static electricity build-up on the bags
(rememebrm the field inside a hollow _conductor_ is zero, but it has to
be a conductor). You don't want to zap a chip on the hard drive's logic
board, or worse still damage the head or media.
Maype put them inside an antistatic bag, then inside the 'dry bag'.
-tony
Temperature/humidity changes that can cause
condensation to form
are not the best thing either. This may be much less of a problem
with smaller modern drives with less thermal mass.
I suspect that much of this problem could be alleviated during
storage by hermetically sealing the drives in plastic bags (can you 
7:09 p.m.
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
I would then be worried about static electricity
build-up on the
bags
It's not terribly hard to get hold of conductive "antistatic" bags.
All the hard disks I've bought lately have come in a conductive bag
with a sachet of dessicant, so presumably the hard disk manufacturers
are happy with that as a medium-term storage approach...
--
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
8:39 p.m.
On Mon, 28 May 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 28 May 2007 at 7:05, Tim Shoppa wrote:
Gun shops sell plastic bags designed to deal with this kind of problem
with firearm storage. Dessicant packets are also available.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Temperature/humidity changes that can cause
condensation to form
are not the best thing either. This may be much less of a problem
with smaller modern drives with less thermal mass.
I suspect that much of this problem could be alleviated during
storage by hermetically sealing the drives in plastic bags (can you
say "Seal A Meal"?) during storage--although one might have to deal
with residual moisture in the air that's present during sealing.
Perhaps adding some dessicant to the bag might help. 
29 May
29 May
1:19 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 28 May 2007 at 7:05, Tim Shoppa wrote:
How about vacuum sealing ? :-) long as your not trying to run it in a
vacuum
I'd think this would preserve rubber parts and virtually eliminate moisture.
-- Curt
Temperature/humidity changes that can cause
condensation to form
are not the best thing either. This may be much less of a problem
with smaller modern drives with less thermal mass.
I suspect that much of this problem could be alleviated during
storage by hermetically sealing the drives in plastic bags (can you
say "Seal A Meal"?) during storage--although one might have to deal
with residual moisture in the air that's present during sealing.
Perhaps adding some dessicant to the bag might help.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:35 a.m.
On 28 May 2007 at 21:19, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
How about vacuum sealing ? :-) long as your not
trying to run it in a
vacuum
I'd think this would preserve rubber parts and virtually eliminate moisture.
That was my reference to "Seal a Meal". Vacuum pump and bag seamer
all in one unit. Used units often be found at flea markets and at
the local Goodwill store.
http://www.sealameal.com/
There's also a competing system, called "Foodsaver":
http://www.foodsaver.com/
Cheers,
Chuck
1:40 a.m.
In article <465B7F94.7040104 at hawkmountain.net>,
"Curtis H. Wilbar Jr." <rescue at hawkmountain.net> writes:
I'd think this would preserve rubber parts and
virtually eliminate moisture.
Rubber parts need some ambient moisture to stay viable. Otherwise out
here in the desert (Salt Lake City, UT) rubber bands wouldn't turn to
crumbly bits after a few months.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
4:06 a.m.
On 28 May 2007 at 19:40, Richard wrote:
Rubber parts need some ambient moisture to stay
viable. Otherwise out
here in the desert (Salt Lake City, UT) rubber bands wouldn't turn to
crumbly bits after a few months.
Rubber bands turn to crumbly bits out here in moldy Oregon in a few
months. I think the agent at fault is more likely ozone from air
pollution.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:40 p.m.
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
How about vacuum sealing ? :-) long as your not
trying to run it in a
vacuum
I'd think this would preserve rubber parts and virtually eliminate
moisture.
Really bad. Causes condensation to form on surfaces, lubricants to come out of
bearings and harden, volatiles to come out of materials and condense on
surfaces, "rubber" parts to swell and harden, seals to extrude. Plastic-cased
IC's have been known to rupture, split, crack or even "explode". PC boards
with
internal voids bubble and warp, breaking solder joints and components.
Some drives are hermetically sealed. The seals are not designed to tolerate a
pressure differential between internal atmosphere and external vacuum.
Clean dry air under pressure ( around 0.5psig over) would be better than vacuum.
To store in a vacuum requires parts designed to operate in and/or tolerate a vacuum.
Vacuum storage has been tried before using real vacuum and using those
newfangled (at the time) vacuum foodsavers (as seen on TV!). Results were not
those that were hoped for. Threads about this should be found in the pre-AOL
CompuServe PC forums archives. (Or GEnie--I can't recall which, now.)
==
jd
Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems
theory.
11:46 p.m.
How about vacuum sealing ? :-) long as your not
trying to run it in a
vacuum
Hard drives are, of course not totally sealed, there is a flitered
'breather' connecting the drive enclosure to the outside world.
My worry with storing them in a vacuum would be what happnes when you
bring them back to atmospheric pressure. Air flows back through that
filter into the drive. Will it bring dust, etc, from the filter onto the
platters? Probably not, but...
-tony
30 May
30 May
1:33 a.m.
On 30 May 2007 at 0:46, Tony Duell wrote:
My worry with storing them in a vacuum would be what
happnes when you
bring them back to atmospheric pressure. Air flows back through that
filter into the drive. Will it bring dust, etc, from the filter onto
the platters? Probably not, but...
The food-sealer type of systems use a very slight vacuum to remove
air pockets, so it's doubtful that they'd produce any problems.
Usually a little diaphragm pump similar to one used for aquarium air
supplies.
--Chuck
28 May
28 May
5:50 p.m.
At 7:05 AM -0400 5/28/07, Tim Shoppa wrote:
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at
aracnet.com> wrote:
I think my RD54's will be staying where they're at... Unfortunately
I'm not sure if my collection of RD52's and dead RD53's is in my
parents garage (it might have never been moved), or up in one of my
storage units. Both can get fairly hot in the summer.
Do temperatures need to be a concern when
storing hard drives? I'm
looking at a temperature range for storage of about 50-110 (obviously
over the course of a year). I've been keeping my collection of
drives at home, but think it's about time to start thinking about
putting them into storage.
Some drives have rubber parts that will degrade more rapidly in
high-heat, high-ozone environments. (Can you hear me thinking "RD53"?
Although actually lots of MFM and other drives are similar inside.) Temperature/humidity changes that can cause
condensation to form
are not the best thing either. This may be much less of a problem
with smaller modern drives with less thermal mass.
If condensation was a problem where I'm thinking of sticking a pile
of drives, then I wouldn't be storing stuff there :^)
Basically all of the drives I was thinking of putting up in storage
are 3.5x1" or 3.5x1.6" drives. I've a good number of IDE drives, but
most would be SCSI HD's.
Zane
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
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cclist＠sydex.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
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onymouse＠garlic.com -
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