In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:11:39 +1000, Franc Zabkar
wrote:
[...]

I've NEVER had a
drive failure that was directly attributed to such contact corrosion.
It's usually something else that kills the drive.

I think people are jumping to conclusion, because the discolorarion
is what they can see (and think they understand). There is a posting
in this thread with a person that has had a 3-way RAID1 fail and
attributes it to the contact discoloration. Now, whith a slow chemical
process, the required level of synchronicity is as unlikely that
calling it impossible is fair.

The thread has
several detailed photos. All except the older tinned PCB appear to
show evidence of serious corrosion.

Is this the fallout from RoHS? Surely it's not the result of some cost
saving measure?

Nope. If the contacts were tin-silver, 5% lead, or one of the other
low lead alloys, the corrosion would probably be white or light gray
in color. The dark black suggests there's at least some lead involved
or possibly dissimilar contact material.

Actually pure silver also sulfidizes (?) in this way. The
look is very characteristic. I think this is silver plating
we see. It is typically not a problem on contacts that
are in use, it does not crawl between contact points.

I suspect in the observed instances, this is a purely
aestetic problem and has no impact on HDD performance
or reliability whatsoever.

Arno

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Arno Wagner, Dr. sc. techn., Dipl. Inform., CISSP -- Email:
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