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Altomare
@altomare@oldbytes.space  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

Some neat info about 70s hard drive contaminants.

From the DEC RK05 disk drive maintenance manual (DEC-00-HRK05-C-D)

#retrocomputing #dec

""Relationship of Disk Head, Disk, and Contaminants"

Graph showing a side/cutoff view of hard drive reading head over the platter, with size comparisons:
* Space between the head & platter: 100µ
* Smoke particle: 250µ
* Fingerprint smudge: no unit but it's drawn twice as big as the smoke particle
* Lint & dust: no unit either, 4 times bigger(ish) than the smudge
* Humar hair: .004"

The oxide layer on the disk is 200µ wid
""Relationship of Disk Head, Disk, and Contaminants" Graph showing a side/cutoff view of hard drive reading head over the platter, with size comparisons: * Space between the head & platter: 100µ * Smoke particle: 250µ * Fingerprint smudge: no unit but it's drawn twice as big as the smoke particle * Lint & dust: no unit either, 4 times bigger(ish) than the smudge * Humar hair: .004" The oxide layer on the disk is 200µ wid
""Relationship of Disk Head, Disk, and Contaminants" Graph showing a side/cutoff view of hard drive reading head over the platter, with size comparisons: * Space between the head & platter: 100µ * Smoke particle: 250µ * Fingerprint smudge: no unit but it's drawn twice as big as the smoke particle * Lint & dust: no unit either, 4 times bigger(ish) than the smudge * Humar hair: .004" The oxide layer on the disk is 200µ wid
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Abram Kedge 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇦
@AbramKedge@beige.party replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

@altomare on modern sealed drives, the firmware still has to deal with imperfectly flat disks. It uses head temperature to build a map of microscopically small bumps and distortions, and adjusts the fly-height dynamically to float above them.

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Russ Sharek
@RussSharek@mastodon.art replied  ·  activity timestamp 6 days ago

@altomare

I've known about this, but have never seen this chart before.

That's amazing.

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