Hard disk rubber jackets

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Fryatt
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J

John Fryatt

Hi,

I've just been re-jigging some kit and installing a Seagate HD. This
particular Gateway machine has a tool-less arrangement for fitting hard
disks which conflicts with the rubber jacket on the Seagate disk. It
kind of rucks up as you slide it in. Currently I've taken the jacket off
and it seems to work ok.

Can you see any problems with removing the rubber jacket? Any thoughts?

Other HDs don't have that jacket, indeed even other Seagates don't have
it, so does it matter?
I'm thinking I'd lose out on sound insulation and shock resistance (but
I'm careful, and hardly ever bounce hard disks on the floor), but gain
on heat dissipation.

John
 
John said:
Hi,

I've just been re-jigging some kit and installing a Seagate HD. This
particular Gateway machine has a tool-less arrangement for fitting hard
disks which conflicts with the rubber jacket on the Seagate disk. It
kind of rucks up as you slide it in. Currently I've taken the jacket off
and it seems to work ok.

Can you see any problems with removing the rubber jacket? Any thoughts?

Other HDs don't have that jacket, indeed even other Seagates don't have
it, so does it matter?
I'm thinking I'd lose out on sound insulation and shock resistance (but
I'm careful, and hardly ever bounce hard disks on the floor), but gain
on heat dissipation.

John

Never heard of that. What sort of Seagate is it?
 
Bob said:
Ever hear of http://tinyurl.com/
Yes.

That rubber piece looks like part of the case.

No, it's a jacket.
Whatever it is, you do not want to fool with it, especially when it
has a sticker on it.

Is this from experience or knowledge, or just a general comment? The
jacket isn't fixed onto the drive or 'built-in'. It's just a shaped
rubber cover stretched over.
 
Is this from experience or knowledge, or just a general comment?

General comment.

I would never own anything from Seagate. Everytime in the past that I
did, I was burnt.
The
jacket isn't fixed onto the drive or 'built-in'. It's just a shaped
rubber cover stretched over.

Weird. I wonder if the getup includes booties.
 
John Fryatt said:
Hi,

I've just been re-jigging some kit and installing a Seagate HD. This
particular Gateway machine has a tool-less arrangement for fitting hard
disks which conflicts with the rubber jacket on the Seagate disk. It kind
of rucks up as you slide it in. Currently I've taken the jacket off and it
seems to work ok.

Can you see any problems with removing the rubber jacket? Any thoughts?

Other HDs don't have that jacket, indeed even other Seagates don't have
it, so does it matter?
I'm thinking I'd lose out on sound insulation and shock resistance (but
I'm careful, and hardly ever bounce hard disks on the floor), but gain on
heat dissipation.

John

I think theyre there to prevent static electricity affecting the circuit
board but if your carful thats not a worry. And the point about heat is
valid - I took the jacket off mine ages ago with no problems.
 
Hi,

I've just been re-jigging some kit and installing a Seagate HD. This
particular Gateway machine has a tool-less arrangement for fitting hard
disks which conflicts with the rubber jacket on the Seagate disk. It
kind of rucks up as you slide it in. Currently I've taken the jacket off
and it seems to work ok.

Can you see any problems with removing the rubber jacket? Any thoughts?

Other HDs don't have that jacket, indeed even other Seagates don't have
it, so does it matter?
I'm thinking I'd lose out on sound insulation and shock resistance (but
I'm careful, and hardly ever bounce hard disks on the floor), but gain
on heat dissipation.

John

The rubber jacket is supposedly a little protection but
since the other manufacturers didn't find such necessary I
have to consider it an esthetic frill. The drive will work
without it, but of course if it failed under warranty you
would need to put the jacket back on before sending it in,
and of course if you damaged it while installing, Seagate
would have an arguably reasonable (argument) that your
warranty was void by damage incurred without that jacket on
it since it came that way.
 
John said:
Hi,

I've just been re-jigging some kit and installing a Seagate HD. This
particular Gateway machine has a tool-less arrangement for fitting hard
disks which conflicts with the rubber jacket on the Seagate disk. It
kind of rucks up as you slide it in. Currently I've taken the jacket off
and it seems to work ok.

Can you see any problems with removing the rubber jacket? Any thoughts?

Other HDs don't have that jacket, indeed even other Seagates don't have
it, so does it matter?
I'm thinking I'd lose out on sound insulation and shock resistance (but
I'm careful, and hardly ever bounce hard disks on the floor), but gain
on heat dissipation.

Excellent, thanks for your advice folks. I guess I'll leave my rubber
jacket off! ;-)
 
Bob said:
General comment.

I would never own anything from Seagate. Everytime in the past that I
did, I was burnt.

Funny how people form varied opinions. In other groups there are people
who say Seagate are the best drives nowadays and WD are quite poor. I've
always had good results from WD though.
Weird. I wonder if the getup includes booties.

Optional extra. ;-)
 
Funny how people form varied opinions. In other groups there are people
who say Seagate are the best drives nowadays and WD are quite poor. I've
always had good results from WD though.


If we ignore anomolies form particular models of either,
both are fine alternatives. That is, until one considers
that Seagate's low-end retail drives have 5 year warranty
and WD now offers only 1 yr for the same class of retail
drive. After 3 years it may not be so valuable a drive to
make it worthwhile to RMA for a replacement, but after 1
year, usually it is still.
 
In message <[email protected]> kony
If we ignore anomolies form particular models of either,
both are fine alternatives. That is, until one considers
that Seagate's low-end retail drives have 5 year warranty
and WD now offers only 1 yr for the same class of retail
drive. After 3 years it may not be so valuable a drive to
make it worthwhile to RMA for a replacement, but after 1
year, usually it is still.

To me, it's not the actual usefulness of the warranty, it's the implied
confidence.

If someone tells me "Your <whatever> will be running for at least five
years or we'll give you a new one", I tend to have more faith in the
product then if they say "Yeah, maybe you should get an extended
warranty on your <whatever>, what if it fails in a year and a half?"
 
In message <[email protected]> kony


To me, it's not the actual usefulness of the warranty, it's the implied
confidence.

If someone tells me "Your <whatever> will be running for at least five
years or we'll give you a new one", I tend to have more faith in the
product then if they say "Yeah, maybe you should get an extended
warranty on your <whatever>, what if it fails in a year and a half?"

.... but they don't claim "we'll give you a new one".
Last Seagate I RMA'd, they sent a refurb'd drive to replace
one that was only 2 months old. Wasn't very pleased about
it, but then it was only $30 or $40 after rebate so I didn't
mind so much.

Now ATI is dropping their warranty to 1 year too, and I have
far less confidence that their fans will last as long as a
hard drive will.
 
In message <[email protected]> kony
... but they don't claim "we'll give you a new one".
Last Seagate I RMA'd, they sent a refurb'd drive to replace
one that was only 2 months old. Wasn't very pleased about
it, but then it was only $30 or $40 after rebate so I didn't
mind so much.

Well, not new-new, but in fairness you aren't sending them a new drive,
so it's not reasonable to expect a new drive in return either, in my
opinion.
Now ATI is dropping their warranty to 1 year too, and I have
far less confidence that their fans will last as long as a
hard drive will.

heh. First thing I do once I'm happy with the major components of a new
system is start replacing all the fans. My new Gigabyte board
(KA-K8NXP-SLI) has two fans, together they're noisier then the entire
rest of my system combined, and I'm just using the stock fans in an
Antec P180 case, plus a couple Raptor drives.

It's not just the sound, although that's a big part of it, but I'd
rather replace them on my schedule then in 6 months during the middle of
an explosion at work when they decide to prematurely die.

I'm going to see if I can get away with passive cooling on the
motherboard -- Gigabyte can't, because they need a low profile cooling
solution in one place otherwise it blocks the PCI-Ex16 slot, but I won't
be doing anything majorly fancy with video, and it doesn't block either
of the two cards I intend on using...
 
Well, not new-new, but in fairness you aren't sending them a new drive,
so it's not reasonable to expect a new drive in return either, in my
opinion.

Completely disagree. I paid for a new, fully working drive.
For it to fail THAT soon, it wasn't really "used" except to
the extent that it failed to work as guaranteed. If it had
ran over a year, I feel that's a different story as if one
tried they could put a lot of use on it in a year, but this
particular drive wasn't even running an OS or anything, I'd
plopped it into a RAID1, it was rebuilt, then couple months
later it kept dropping out and wouldn't hold data no matter
the setup. It had no use, relatively.

Perhaps more to the point, when one buys a drive new they
expect not just "5 years" of use, but the full use period of
a drive. When you get a used drive that was (on average)
older than 2 months, the full drive life you paid for is not
what you end up with. Since drives naturally wear out over
time your replacement drive has less of that lifespan
remaining. Of course that can't be proven on a case-by-case
basic, but it is fairly obvious when seen as average
lifespan, that it will hold true over the course of ALL
drives that fail that early and are replaced with
refurbished drives.
heh. First thing I do once I'm happy with the major components of a new
system is start replacing all the fans. My new Gigabyte board
(KA-K8NXP-SLI) has two fans, together they're noisier then the entire
rest of my system combined, and I'm just using the stock fans in an
Antec P180 case, plus a couple Raptor drives.

Me too, but then every now and then I hear of someone's
6600GT or [place random part here] failing right away and
the owner SWEARS they only treated it with kid gloves. IF
that's true, that it was entirely a product fault rather
than a user fault, it would be a bit disconcerting to go to
the time and trouble of moddin' something only to have it
die regardless. So far that hasn't happened to me to any
significant measure BUT even so my mods tend to be the
permanent type, to the extent that the part could not be
returned to a visually-factory-identical stat. Not that it
matters though, I accept that once I do any kind of mod I
have taken warranty and abandoned it.

It's not just the sound, although that's a big part of it, but I'd
rather replace them on my schedule then in 6 months during the middle of
an explosion at work when they decide to prematurely die.

The one good thing about ever-faster parts is that old
abandoned heatsinks get ever better too. Low profile socket
370 'sinks do a pretty good job of passive cooling if you
can fab a bracket to hold them down evenly if/when used on a
flipchip.

I'm going to see if I can get away with passive cooling on the
motherboard -- Gigabyte can't, because they need a low profile cooling
solution in one place otherwise it blocks the PCI-Ex16 slot, but I won't
be doing anything majorly fancy with video, and it doesn't block either
of the two cards I intend on using...


The southbridge cooler on that looks pretty easy, as there's
a lot of space above and below it so long as you clear that
crystal below the memory slots. Something like a 1U skt 370
'sink with a couple holes tapped into it should suffice, if
you didn't want to epoxy it onto the SB.

Where's the second fan? I saw one pic where the VRM board
had it, but on another pic the VRM had a heatpipe instead.
That could be a bit harder since the way the card is set up
a big heatsink will put more stess on the card edge
contacts. It does line up with the two mobo standoff holes
though and the card itself appears to have a hole in each
top corner so it shouldn't be too hard to fab a
reinforcement bracket to support extra weight if Gigabyte
doesn't include such a bracket.
 
In message <[email protected]> kony
heh. First thing I do once I'm happy with the major components of a new
system is start replacing all the fans. My new Gigabyte board
(KA-K8NXP-SLI) has two fans, together they're noisier then the entire
rest of my system combined, and I'm just using the stock fans in an
Antec P180 case, plus a couple Raptor drives.

Me too, but then every now and then I hear of someone's
6600GT or [place random part here] failing right away and
the owner SWEARS they only treated it with kid gloves. IF
that's true, that it was entirely a product fault rather
than a user fault, it would be a bit disconcerting to go to
the time and trouble of moddin' something only to have it
die regardless. So far that hasn't happened to me to any
significant measure BUT even so my mods tend to be the
permanent type, to the extent that the part could not be
returned to a visually-factory-identical stat. Not that it
matters though, I accept that once I do any kind of mod I
have taken warranty and abandoned it.

Yeah, if the mod isn't reversible then the warranty is pretty much
toast, usually. I've seen the odd exception made over the years though,
but I wouldn't count on it.

I don't really warranty much though, usually when something dies it's
because I did something very stupid, or the warranty is so far expired
that it's not relevant.
The southbridge cooler on that looks pretty easy, as there's
a lot of space above and below it so long as you clear that
crystal below the memory slots. Something like a 1U skt 370
'sink with a couple holes tapped into it should suffice, if
you didn't want to epoxy it onto the SB.

The problem is right here: http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0003.JPG

There are a couple other angles at http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0001.JPG
and http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0002.JPG

That's the back end of the video card, so it's not a component I can
just move...

When I had the motherboard upside down it looked like the chip may not
actually be as wide as the fan, although I haven't taken that fan off to
look at it yet. If I'm right, I'll put in giant chipset heat sink and
be done with it.

Above the video card is a hood that can house an 8cm fan, I can get an
ultra quiet fan in there and have it blowing down on the chipset if I
shift the hood a little and put in something to control the airflow.
Where's the second fan? I saw one pic where the VRM board
had it, but on another pic the VRM had a heatpipe instead.

Not on mine :(
That could be a bit harder since the way the card is set up
a big heatsink will put more stess on the card edge
contacts. It does line up with the two mobo standoff holes
though and the card itself appears to have a hole in each
top corner so it shouldn't be too hard to fab a
reinforcement bracket to support extra weight if Gigabyte
doesn't include such a bracket.

http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0004.JPG
http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0005.JPG

You can see the tiny bracket that is included - It's not much, it mostly
just latches the daughter board to the motherboard, but the whole thing
is still wobbly.

I'm not a real big fan of the whole DPS (dual power system) so far, the
entire daughter board has a somewhat loose feeling to begin with, plus
it's stupidly close to the CPU / CPU fan. I'm already afraid it will
fall out (although as long as that bracket holds I think I'll be okay).

I was using a 12cm Zalman on my last system and I've been extremely
pleased with it, I'd love to pick up another one, but I'd have to take
out the DPS completely. It's optional, and I'm having trouble finding
any real information as to exactly what it does, but my current theory
is that if it didn't have some point, it wouldn't be in the box *sigh*

I'm debating whether or not I should replace the stock AMD cooler, it's
pretty quiet compared to the rest of the system (When the case is closed
I can't tell the difference when I stop the fan), but once I get the two
motherboard fans out of here, the CPU fan will be next on my noise list.

If I could find something that could force air directly over the DPS
module as well as the CPU, I might be able to just remove it's fan and
go with a passive solution for the DPS.

The case is an Antec P180 with the power supply at the bottom in a
separate chamber, so other then the CPU and motherboard there is no heat
source anywhere in the top of the case, all the drives are in the bottom
chamber. I don't game, so my video card is a pretty basic card, passive
cooling.

At the moment the RAM is the hottest thing going...

The heatsink on the DPS is cool to the touch, and even with it's fan off
it's not exactly getting toasty. I need to look around at what parts I
can get locally, but I might be able to get something that I can either
bracket to the 12cm fan above, or to the CPU fan.

At the top and rear of the case there are two 12cm exhaust fans, so
there is a fair amount of airflow up there to begin with.

In an ideal world I'd get somebody to build a heatpipe system from the
chipset and the DPS module and exhaust the heat through the top fan, but
unfortunately I don't have the skills to do it myself.

I don't mind investing a little, I plan on keeping this system for a
while, although I'll go up to a dualcore as soon as they come down in
price, or as soon as I'm ready to use this CPU in another system and
need to replace it anyway.
 
Last Seagate I RMA'd, they sent a refurb'd drive to replace
one that was only 2 months old.

I've been buying nothing but WD drives for many years and never has
one of them failed, and certainly not in any 2 months.

The only reason for a WD drive to end up in the trash is because it is
so old it is too small to fool with.

Like what am I going to do with a 100 MB drive from 1996 - although it
does still work.
 
Boom. Boom boom boom. Boom boom. BOOM. Have a nice day.
-- Susan Ivanova, B5

I just finished watching the last episode of Babylon 5, which for
those who do not know, consists of 110 episodes total. B5 is the best
science fiction ever to hit the screen. Nothing will ever come close,
not even Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, DS9, nothing. Without
exception every actor/actress played his/her role with passion. Every
time I would watch an episode, I would get so involved that I would
postpone supper if necessary. It was noted that filming the last
episode was extremely difficult because everyone on the set was in
tears.
 
The problem is right here: http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0003.JPG

There are a couple other angles at http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0001.JPG
and http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0002.JPG

That's the back end of the video card, so it's not a component I can
just move...

When I had the motherboard upside down it looked like the chip may not
actually be as wide as the fan, although I haven't taken that fan off to
look at it yet. If I'm right, I'll put in giant chipset heat sink and
be done with it.

It looks like there would be a lot of options due to how
little of the card extends to that point. Since it's just
the edge of the card it's rather thin and just about
anything you wanted to use could have a channel made into it
by pulling a few tines off of a 'sink, or an edge-grinder or
table-saw used to make a slot. A plain old Pentium 1
heatsink might work too, a many of them weren't more than
1-1.5 cm tall.



http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0004.JPG
http://www.crazyhat.net/DSCF0005.JPG

You can see the tiny bracket that is included - It's not much, it mostly
just latches the daughter board to the motherboard, but the whole thing
is still wobbly.

I'm not a real big fan of the whole DPS (dual power system) so far, the
entire daughter board has a somewhat loose feeling to begin with, plus
it's stupidly close to the CPU / CPU fan. I'm already afraid it will
fall out (although as long as that bracket holds I think I'll be okay).

It was my impression that it was optional, do you even need
it installed? If that's the case it might make more
difference to an overclocker.

I was using a 12cm Zalman on my last system and I've been extremely
pleased with it, I'd love to pick up another one, but I'd have to take
out the DPS completely. It's optional, and I'm having trouble finding
any real information as to exactly what it does, but my current theory
is that if it didn't have some point, it wouldn't be in the box *sigh*

Unplug it, try to start the system, and measure the temps of
the rest of the regulation capacitors next to the socket.
If you can feel a difference in their heat without the VRM
board, compared to with it (while running full load stress
test like Prime95 's Torture Test for at least 20 minutes).
I'm debating whether or not I should replace the stock AMD cooler, it's
pretty quiet compared to the rest of the system (When the case is closed
I can't tell the difference when I stop the fan), but once I get the two
motherboard fans out of here, the CPU fan will be next on my noise list.

If it runs too hot the whole metal 'sink might need
replaced. Otherwise for noise and longevity the fan alone
might be swapped with something thicker and lower RPM.

If I could find something that could force air directly over the DPS
module as well as the CPU, I might be able to just remove it's fan and
go with a passive solution for the DPS.

Agreed, or if you took 4 pieces of metal, just straight
stripes with 2 holes each and used them as adapters to mount
a fan that was larger than the top of the heatsink, for
example a 92mm fan, then there should be flow between the
'sink and VRM card enough to cool it some- and it should not
really need that dedicated fan-'sink they used, "some"
airflow is just a lot better than none. Main problem with
adapter pieces as decrribed is that they're fiddly to
install, if the fan isn't a lot bigger than the 'sink then
it may be easiest to use small bolts & nuts for the 4 fan
corners after screwing down the pieces and that can require
some agility or curved forcepts/similar to hold the parts
during aseembly.
 
I just finished watching the last episode of Babylon 5, which for
those who do not know, consists of 110 episodes total. B5 is the best
science fiction ever to hit the screen. Nothing will ever come close,
not even Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, DS9, nothing. Without
exception every actor/actress played his/her role with passion. Every
time I would watch an episode, I would get so involved that I would
postpone supper if necessary. It was noted that filming the last
episode was extremely difficult because everyone on the set was in
tears.

Agreed. I rewatch B5 every year or so simply because it's still the
best. SG-1 isn't bad, DS9 had it's moments, but B5 is just amazing.
 
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