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Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 19th 09, 08:42 PM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
GreenXenon
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 60
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?

Hi:

I have a question just out of curiosity.

I notice with ZIP discs and floppies, the disc is a soft dark-brown
round film-like material that can easily be shredded -- with paper-
shredder -- to remove confidential information.

However, the magnetic platters in HDDs are much harder and metallic.

Why don't they make the hard-disc-drive platters soft like the discs
of floppies and ZIPs? It would be so much easier to remove unwanted
confidential information then. Simply unscrew the HDD, remove the soft
platters and dump them into a paper-shreder.

To remove personal info from an HDD requires that the platters be
heated beyond Curie point to eliminate all magnetic data. This is
extremely inconvenient and dangerous because of the high temperatures
required.


Thanks a bunch,

Green
  #2  
Old June 19th 09, 09:28 PM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Stephen[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?

This is down to several factors.

Typical hard drives are hermetically sealed units which allow the platters
to spin at a higher RPM than would be the case for Zip or floppy drives.

If the hard disc was "floppy", you will find that it will distort if you
start spinning it at 5,400rpm (most laptop drives) or ar 7,200rpm (most
desktop hard drives) or even at 10,000rpm (high performance drives) the
floppy media would probably tear itself to shreds.

In addition, the gap between the read/write heads and the data surface is
very tiny, so any accidental bending of the disk surface runs the risk of
the heads destroying the data surface and making the owner kiss goodbye to
many Gigs worth of data. Having a hermetically sealed disk means there is no
issues with dust as there would be on a removable disc.

In addition, if the hard disc surface was to increase in diameter with the
high rotational speed, the head positioning motors would have to have a
tracking compensation algorithm so it knew where the data had "moved" to

So thats why hard discs have glass platters with a magnetic coating on it.

zip discs and floppies spin at much lower rpm as the disk is not
hermetically sealed and to avoid disc distortion that would otherwise occur
at higher RPM and also are of lower data density compared to todays HDD's og
500Gb to 1.5TB so head positioning on zip and floppies os not as critical as
it would be on a HDD.

"GreenXenon" wrote in message
...
Hi:

I have a question just out of curiosity.

I notice with ZIP discs and floppies, the disc is a soft dark-brown
round film-like material that can easily be shredded -- with paper-
shredder -- to remove confidential information.

However, the magnetic platters in HDDs are much harder and metallic.

Why don't they make the hard-disc-drive platters soft like the discs
of floppies and ZIPs? It would be so much easier to remove unwanted
confidential information then. Simply unscrew the HDD, remove the soft
platters and dump them into a paper-shreder.

To remove personal info from an HDD requires that the platters be
heated beyond Curie point to eliminate all magnetic data. This is
extremely inconvenient and dangerous because of the high temperatures
required.


Thanks a bunch,

Green



  #3  
Old June 19th 09, 09:50 PM posted to alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage,alt.computer
Ato_Zee
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 230
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?


It would be so much easier to remove unwanted
confidential information then.


There are several destroy the data utilities that are
easier to use than physically destroying the disk.
There are also machines that will physically shread
the whole drive to a pile of plasic and aluminium
chips. For the really paranoid.
  #4  
Old June 19th 09, 09:54 PM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
chuckcar[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 16
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?

GreenXenon wrote in
:

Hi:

I have a question just out of curiosity.

I notice with ZIP discs and floppies, the disc is a soft dark-brown
round film-like material that can easily be shredded -- with paper-
shredder -- to remove confidential information.

However, the magnetic platters in HDDs are much harder and metallic.

Why don't they make the hard-disc-drive platters soft like the discs
of floppies and ZIPs? It would be so much easier to remove unwanted
confidential information then. Simply unscrew the HDD, remove the soft
platters and dump them into a paper-shreder.

To remove personal info from an HDD requires that the platters be
heated beyond Curie point to eliminate all magnetic data. This is
extremely inconvenient and dangerous because of the high temperatures
required.

Several reasons: 1. Rotation speed. Hard drives spin at several thousand
RPM (7,000-10,000), Floppies at under 500. You can actually tell by their
sound when a revolution is finished - less than a second, but definitely
discernable. 2. Head gap. Floppy disk heads sit on the order of 1 mm from
the surface of the disk and frequently make contact with it. Hard drive
heads float less than 10 millionths of an inch over the surface and due to
the speed involved will destroy the surface if they contact it. However if
you have to do more than a full format, that's only the start of your
security concerns IMHO.

--
(setq (chuck nil) car(chuck) )
  #5  
Old June 19th 09, 10:38 PM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
J¡m ßéâñ
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?


Because if they made "hard" drives floppy like you want they couldn't
call them HARD drives dimwit!


"GreenXenon" wrote in message
...
Hi:

I have a question just out of curiosity.

I notice with ZIP discs and floppies, the disc is a soft dark-brown
round film-like material that can easily be shredded -- with paper-
shredder -- to remove confidential information.

However, the magnetic platters in HDDs are much harder and metallic.

Why don't they make the hard-disc-drive platters soft like the discs
of floppies and ZIPs? It would be so much easier to remove unwanted
confidential information then. Simply unscrew the HDD, remove the soft
platters and dump them into a paper-shreder.

To remove personal info from an HDD requires that the platters be
heated beyond Curie point to eliminate all magnetic data. This is
extremely inconvenient and dangerous because of the high temperatures
required.


Thanks a bunch,

Green


  #6  
Old June 19th 09, 11:43 PM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
GreenXenon
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 60
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?

On Jun 19, 1:28 pm, "Stephen" wrote:
This is down to several factors.

Typical hard drives are hermetically sealed units which allow the platters
to spin at a higher RPM than would be the case for Zip or floppy drives.

If the hard disc was "floppy", you will find that it will distort if you
start spinning it at 5,400rpm (most laptop drives) or ar 7,200rpm (most
desktop hard drives) or even at 10,000rpm (high performance drives) the
floppy media would probably tear itself to shreds.

In addition, the gap between the read/write heads and the data surface is
very tiny, so any accidental bending of the disk surface runs the risk of
the heads destroying the data surface and making the owner kiss goodbye to
many Gigs worth of data. Having a hermetically sealed disk means there is no
issues with dust as there would be on a removable disc.

In addition, if the hard disc surface was to increase in diameter with the
high rotational speed, the head positioning motors would have to have a
tracking compensation algorithm so it knew where the data had "moved" to

So thats why hard discs have glass platters with a magnetic coating on it.

zip discs and floppies spin at much lower rpm as the disk is not
hermetically sealed and to avoid disc distortion that would otherwise occur
at higher RPM and also are of lower data density compared to todays HDD's og
500Gb to 1.5TB so head positioning on zip and floppies os not as critical as
it would be on a HDD.



Is it possible to hermetically-seal the soft disc of a floppy/zip? Of
course the spin speed would still have to be slow to prevent the soft
material from being injured. Right?

Is it also true that in order to have the same amount of storage
space, that the soft floppy material would need to be bigger in
diameter than the hard platter of an HDD?

IOW, is it possible for a soft floppy disc to have the same data
density as a hard HDD platter?
  #7  
Old June 19th 09, 11:59 PM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Jeff Strickland[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?


"GreenXenon" wrote in message
...
On Jun 19, 1:28 pm, "Stephen" wrote:
This is down to several factors.

Typical hard drives are hermetically sealed units which allow the
platters
to spin at a higher RPM than would be the case for Zip or floppy drives.

If the hard disc was "floppy", you will find that it will distort if you
start spinning it at 5,400rpm (most laptop drives) or ar 7,200rpm (most
desktop hard drives) or even at 10,000rpm (high performance drives) the
floppy media would probably tear itself to shreds.

In addition, the gap between the read/write heads and the data surface is
very tiny, so any accidental bending of the disk surface runs the risk of
the heads destroying the data surface and making the owner kiss goodbye
to
many Gigs worth of data. Having a hermetically sealed disk means there is
no
issues with dust as there would be on a removable disc.

In addition, if the hard disc surface was to increase in diameter with
the
high rotational speed, the head positioning motors would have to have a
tracking compensation algorithm so it knew where the data had "moved" to

So thats why hard discs have glass platters with a magnetic coating on
it.

zip discs and floppies spin at much lower rpm as the disk is not
hermetically sealed and to avoid disc distortion that would otherwise
occur
at higher RPM and also are of lower data density compared to todays HDD's
og
500Gb to 1.5TB so head positioning on zip and floppies os not as critical
as
it would be on a HDD.



Is it possible to hermetically-seal the soft disc of a floppy/zip?


Yes, it's possible, but why do it?



Of
course the spin speed would still have to be slow to prevent the soft
material from being injured. Right?

Is it also true that in order to have the same amount of storage
space, that the soft floppy material would need to be bigger in
diameter than the hard platter of an HDD?


Yes. The reason for speed is that the area of a data cluster can be smaller.




IOW, is it possible for a soft floppy disc to have the same data
density as a hard HDD platter?


NO, because the floppy spins at a fraction of the speed.






  #8  
Old June 20th 09, 01:17 AM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Dh
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?


"GreenXenon" wrote in message
...
On Jun 19, 1:28 pm, "Stephen" wrote:
This is down to several factors.

Typical hard drives are hermetically sealed units which allow the
platters
to spin at a higher RPM than would be the case for Zip or floppy drives.

If the hard disc was "floppy", you will find that it will distort if you
start spinning it at 5,400rpm (most laptop drives) or ar 7,200rpm (most
desktop hard drives) or even at 10,000rpm (high performance drives) the
floppy media would probably tear itself to shreds.

In addition, the gap between the read/write heads and the data surface is
very tiny, so any accidental bending of the disk surface runs the risk of
the heads destroying the data surface and making the owner kiss goodbye
to
many Gigs worth of data. Having a hermetically sealed disk means there is
no
issues with dust as there would be on a removable disc.

In addition, if the hard disc surface was to increase in diameter with
the
high rotational speed, the head positioning motors would have to have a
tracking compensation algorithm so it knew where the data had "moved" to

So thats why hard discs have glass platters with a magnetic coating on
it.

zip discs and floppies spin at much lower rpm as the disk is not
hermetically sealed and to avoid disc distortion that would otherwise
occur
at higher RPM and also are of lower data density compared to todays HDD's
og
500Gb to 1.5TB so head positioning on zip and floppies os not as critical
as
it would be on a HDD.




Is it also true that in order to have the same amount of storage
space, that the soft floppy material would need to be bigger in
diameter than the hard platter of an HDD?



Yes, biGGer than this.
http://cache.gizmodo.com/archives/im...hard_drive.jpg


  #9  
Old June 20th 09, 06:00 AM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rod Speed
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8,559
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?

GreenXenon wrote

I have a question just out of curiosity.


Dont forget what curiosity did to the cat.

I notice with ZIP discs and floppies, the disc is a soft dark-brown
round film-like material that can easily be shredded -- with paper-
shredder -- to remove confidential information.


However, the magnetic platters in HDDs are much harder and metallic.


Why don't they make the hard-disc-drive platters soft like the discs of floppies and ZIPs?


Because you get much higher bit densitys with rigid platters
and its completely trivial to wipe them magnetically and you
can reuse the platters when you do that.

It would be so much easier to remove
unwanted confidential information then.


Nope.

Simply unscrew the HDD, remove the soft
platters and dump them into a paper-shreder.


Much easier to use a decent security wipe like dban.

To remove personal info from an HDD requires that the platters
be heated beyond Curie point to eliminate all magnetic data.


Wrong. All you need is a decent security wipe like dban.

This is extremely inconvenient and dangerous because of the high temperatures required.


Nothing dangerous about a properly designed furnace.

And shredded floppys have actually been recovered.


  #10  
Old June 20th 09, 06:05 AM posted to alt.computer,24hoursupport.helpdesk,alt.computer.security,alt.privacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Rod Speed
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8,559
Default Why are HDD platters harder than the floppy/ZIP discs?

Stephen wrote:

This is down to several factors.


Typical hard drives are hermetically sealed units


No they arent. They always have a filtered vent that allows pressure equalisation.

which allow the platters to spin at a higher RPM than would be the case for Zip or floppy drives.


It isnt the spin rate that allows the much higher bit density.

If the hard disc was "floppy", you will find that it will distort if
you start spinning it at 5,400rpm (most laptop drives) or ar 7,200rpm
(most desktop hard drives) or even at 10,000rpm (high performance
drives) the floppy media would probably tear itself to shreds.


In addition, the gap between the read/write heads and the data
surface is very tiny, so any accidental bending of the disk surface
runs the risk of the heads destroying the data surface


In fact hard drive heads fly. Floppy drives heads dont.

and making the owner kiss goodbye to many Gigs worth of data. Having a hermetically sealed disk means there is no
issues with dust as there would be on a removable disc.


In addition, if the hard disc surface was to increase in diameter
with the high rotational speed, the head positioning motors would have to have a tracking compensation algorithm so it
knew where the data had "moved" to


Nope, modern hard drives have embedded servo info that handles that
fine as the platter expand and contract due to changing temperatue.

So thats why hard discs have glass platters with a magnetic coating on it.


They arent all glass.

zip discs and floppies spin at much lower rpm as the disk is not
hermetically sealed and to avoid disc distortion that would otherwise
occur at higher RPM and also are of lower data density compared to todays HDD's og 500Gb to 1.5TB so head positioning
on zip and floppies os not as critical as it would be on a HDD.


In fact the real reason is just the much higher bit densitys possible with rigid platters.


GreenXenon wrote


I have a question just out of curiosity.

I notice with ZIP discs and floppies, the disc is a soft dark-brown
round film-like material that can easily be shredded -- with paper-
shredder -- to remove confidential information.

However, the magnetic platters in HDDs are much harder and metallic.

Why don't they make the hard-disc-drive platters soft like the discs
of floppies and ZIPs? It would be so much easier to remove unwanted
confidential information then. Simply unscrew the HDD, remove the
soft platters and dump them into a paper-shreder.

To remove personal info from an HDD requires that the platters be
heated beyond Curie point to eliminate all magnetic data. This is
extremely inconvenient and dangerous because of the high temperatures
required.


Thanks a bunch,

Green



 




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