Comments on: Hard drive platter "X"?

Question: Hard drive platter "X"?

yeahyeahyeahwhoo — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 07:56:03 -0800

After dissassembling a hard drive, a coworker found a drive platter with an "X" engraved/stamped on it, anyone know what this means?

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:01:00 -0800

Do you have a picture?

By: bshort

bshort — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:11:53 -0800

Was it on just one side of the platter? Did that platter have a actual head serving it?

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:13:15 -0800

Sometimes when a manufacturer wants to sell, say, a 60GB drive, they'll take an 80GB drive and disable one of the platters. Normally it's done in the drive's firmware though, not physically.

It may also be a calibration platter. Older drives needed a whole side of one platter to track where they were.

By: adamrice

adamrice — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 08:57:47 -0800

I think cillit bang is basically correct. Sometimes one side of a platter will be unused. But it is my understanding with these disks that the unused side doesn't go through the fine processing and coatings that the used sides do; the "X" is probably there to make sure the unused side doesn't get mounted incorrectly in assembly.

By: yeahyeahyeahwhoo

yeahyeahyeahwhoo — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 09:57:06 -0800

interesting. sadly i dont have it anymore so i cant post a picture.

By: printdevil

printdevil — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 01:00:47 -0800

echoing cillit bang and adamrice, another possibility would be that it was a platter that failed QA on one side (post-processing, as opposed to the scenario that it was never processed.)