Broadback :
On 06/12/2012 11:59, The Other Mike wrote:
http://www.eevblog.com/2012/12/05/ee...ost-expensive-
hard-drive-teardown/


Many moons ago, when I used to work we had these very large disk
drives, they did not have (by today's standards) a large capacity
either. These drives were very prone to "head crashes", that is the
heads touched the disk instead of skimming just over the surface. As a
result not only did the heads have to be replaced but the discs re-
polished, which was a job and a half. Thankfully it was never my task
to do this.

Those were probably exchangeable discs that were open to the atmosphere
and liable to surface contamination by tiny airborne particles. IBM's
masterstroke was the sealed enclosure as seen in the video. At first
sight it seemed extravagant to have a set of heads etc in every disk
pack, but it *was* the future.

WIWAL a disk drive was 25 MB and about the size and weight of today's
washing machines. But a *lot* more expensive.

--
Mike Barnes