What are those rods over the platters of Seagate Barracudas?

  • Thread starter Thread starter larrymoencurly
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larrymoencurly

In most pictures showing the inside of a hard drive, you can see the
top platter, the head arm assembly, and the voice coil magnet
assembly, but in some pictures of Seagate Barracudas there are also 1
or 2 black rods that stick over the top platter, one near an end of
the voice coil magnet assembly (www.pricewatch.com/2/26/80-21.htm ,
probably an ST380013AS) and any second rod on the "other" side of the
head arms. The rods aren't exactly radial to the platters but
slightly skewed. So what do these rods do? I couldn't find anything
at www.seagate.com.
 
One is the head parking ramp, the other is the head arm catch that is
wind driven and frees the arm as soon as the platters are up to speed.
 
One is the head parking ramp, the other is the head arm catch that is
wind driven and frees the arm as soon as the platters are up to speed.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Folkert! That makes sense.

I asked Seagate about this, but an idiot there by the name of Michael
T. replied "we don't provide support at that level" and that it was
"proprietary information," AKA pretentious jerk talk for "Duh, I dunno
but I'm not honest enough to admit it."
 
One is the head parking ramp, the other is the head arm catch
that is wind driven and frees the arm as soon as the platters
are up to speed.
Click to expand...

I recently received another reply from Seagate, from a much more
competent person, who said:

"The rods you are refering to are used to control the
aiflow over the heads of the drive. The heads float on
a cushion of air and if this airflow is channeled to be
smooth at the point it reaches the head the performance
will be better."

I'm not sure if he's referring to both rods or only one of them, but I
can't imaging how any trailing rod would help the air flow of the
heads.
 
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