Yes. Remove the drives from the PCs and then remove the drive covers. That'll expose the disks (platters).
I've had some shatter like glass, and others would just bend, like sheet metal.
Posted on 03/08/2016 8:34:18 AM PST by dennisw
Heat doesn't kill hard drives. Here's what does"Free-cooled" datacenters use ambient outside air instead of air conditioning. That lets us see how environment affects system components. Biggest surprise: temperature is not the disk drive killing monster we thought. Here's what is.
At last months Usenix FAST 16 conference, in the Best Paper award winner Environmental Conditions and Disk Reliability in Free-cooled Datacenters, researchers Ioannis Manousakis and Thu D. Nguyen, of Rutgers, Sriram Sankar of GoDaddy, and Gregg McKnight and Ricardo Bianchini of Microsoft, studied how the higher and more variable temperatures and humidity of free-cooling affect hardware components. They reached three key conclusions:
Relative humidity, not higher or more variable temperatures, has a dominant impact on disk failures. High relative humidity causes disk failures largely due to controller/adapter malfunction. Despite the higher failure rates, software to mask failures and enable free-cooling is a huge money-saver.
Background
Datacenters are energy hogs. A web-scale datacenter can use more than 30 megawatts and collectively they are estimated to use 2 percent of US electricity production.
Moreover, the chillers for water cooling and the backup power required to keep them running in a blackout are costly too. As the use of cloud services has grown, the cost of hyperscale datacenters has led to more experimentation such as free-cooling and higher operating temperatures.
But to fully optimize these techniques, operators also need to understand their impact on the equipment. If lower energy costs are offset by higher hardware costs and downtime, it isn't a win. The study
The researchers looked at 9 Microsoft datacenters around the world for periods ranging from 1.5 to 4 years, covering over 1 million drives. They gathered environmental data including temperature and relative humidity and the variation of each.
Being good scientists, they took the data and built a model to analyze the results. They quantified the trade-offs between energy, environment, reliability, and cost. Finally, they have some suggestions for datacenter design.
Key findings:
Disks account for an average of 89 percent of component failures. DIMMs are 2nd at 10 percent. [Disks are the most common component in datacenters.] Relative humidity is the major reliability factor - more so than temperature - even when the data center is operating within industry standards. Disk controller/connectivity failures are greatest during high relative humidity. Server designs that place disks at the back of the server are more reliable in high humidity. Despite the higher failure rates, software mitigation allows cloud providers to save a lot of money with free-cooling. High temperatures are not harmless, but are much less significant than other factors.
That last finding is key to why the cloud clobbers current array products. It is good for global warming and good for the bottom line.
____SNIP______________
So...having your server in the bathroom closet is not a good idea, then?
That’s what my computer keeps telling me. It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
Years ago, around 1968, I read an article in SAGA magazine on how to kill a computer, the type used back then.
Cigarette smoke, excess perfume, spray cleaners and air fresheners all would take a computer off line real quick.
When I first had to work with computers, (1978) smoking was allowed in the control room. I noticed every once in a while one of the smokers would put his cigarette next to the small air intake and the computer would choke and go off line.
We thought it was fun until we found all the daily data was “doubtful” and we had to figure 24 hours worth of data by hand or on a calculator.
Here’s another warning- don’t leave a computer unplugged for any real length of time- I had oen i left unplugged for awhile, in the cellar (which we kept pretty dry- dehumidifier and a nice dry cellar) and later tried to use it again- something happened to it- this thing would not start- it would post- then just turn off- I tried everything to get the thing going- nothing doing- bought several batteries, did the whole reseat memory thing, unplugged everything and tried starting- reset cmos- etc- nothing-
I suspect that even though the cellar was dry, somehow moisture caused some issue I had to junk the computer (it was an older P4 anyhow- wasn’t even worth getting a new M-board and cpu for it- the hardware was all pretty old as well- but it could have been used for basic stuff had it not died-)
IF you are goign to store a computer for any length of time- plug it in from time to time to make sure it’s dry inside, the heat from running should be enough to dry things out
“Heat doesn’t kill hard drives.”
If I bake my old Seagate and Samsung hard drives in the oven at 500+ degrees for four hours, will that make them safe enough for the landfill or would I still want to take a ball-peen hammer to them?
So what failures are caused by humidity? Most of the electronics are sealed so I don’t expect that chips or capacitors dying would increase because of humidity. Is it cable connections? Inductors? Solder joints?
Long term reliability testing doesn't include humidity. Only temperature and temperature cycling (and voltage). Of course, with temperature cycling will come changes in dew point and condensation.
Then again, my experience has been with ICs and circuit boards. Not rotating/mechanical devices like Winchester drives. Although I have tested drives, it has only been secondary.
However, as a general rule, disk drives have the lowest MTBF of all system components (not accounting for batteries).
Many electrolytic capacitors fail if they aren’t used regularly. There are even rules in manufacturing about how to recondition capacitors before soldering them if they’ve been stored for a while.
If I remember correctly, drives have vents to the outside world to regulate pressure.
Maybe condensation on the platters, which can happen when there is a change in temperature, causes errors and problems. The media is ferrous and maybe susceptible to moisture?
Only a guess.
Temperature is an issue for electrolytic caps because it causes the electrolyte to degrade. Usually if there is a lot of ripple that they have to manage.
Electrolytic caps are the worst for reliability.
I think they have a piece of Gore-Tex membrane over the vent that allows “breathing” but not moisture.
At least that’s what vehicle computers use.
Interesting. I almost forgot hard drives need to “breathe” since they stopped labeling the air holes.
It also looks like SSD systems would be better suited for “free cooling” in humid climates
Just like Florida.
I wonder about the effect of altitude on HD life.
Good point. I always thought that it was for dust but it probably blocks humidity too.
The disk head is like a fast moving jet aircraft that flies very close to the ground (the platter). The closer the better. Higher altitudes means less dense air and lower altitudes means denser air.
High altitude can also affect cooling — less dense air means less cooler matter blowing across heatsinks and IC cases to carry heat away.
i did check the capacitors- didn’t find any that were bulging or split- but of course they could have just failed without any signs- or i could have not seen one that did split (some were tucked in pretty tight spots, and hard to see)
It also looks like SSD systems would be better suited for “free cooling” in humid climates
...
I read recently that Samsung has some 16 TB SSD’s coming to market. The price wasn’t mentioned.
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