Jun 8 2005, 11:31 PM, updated 18y ago
Reference: Eight Ways To Kill Your HDD (Part 1) http://www.lostcircuits.com/advice/ibm_maxtor/3.shtml
QUOTE
Eight Ways To Kill Your HDD
Overclocking
Overclocking the system per se does not impose a direct threat to the HDD, however, things change once the PCI frequency goes beyond 38 MHz. Some older drives like the IBM Deskstar5 series would simply corrupt all data, some others like the Western Digitals were running fine up to 42 MHz PCI frequency without problems. The same was true for the older Samsung drives, however, those drives had pitiful performance anyway so we won't talk about them. Factors that influence the stability of the drive at higher IDE frequencies are amongst other things the quality and, as silly as it may appear, the installation of the UATA cables used.
Incorrect Orientation of UATA Cables
Before the days of Ultra DMA 33, IDE cables were available in about any form and shape and length. Some ultra-long cables were up to 24 and 27" long and meant to be used in full tower, others had the middle connectors in all kinds of positions. UDMA/33 brought on some more stringent limitations on the cable length and positioning of the middle connector and while the specs still left open the question of which connector had to be used for master or slaves, certain high-speed drives like the WesternDigital WDC22500, WDC24300 or WDC26400 would either not run or else suffer from extremely compromised longevity when hooked up to the center connector as single drive on that particular channel. This phenomenon was as puzzling (after all, there should not be any difference since the same wires are used) as it was consistent between users and chipsets. The main reason why the phenomenon was so counterintuitive was that with shorter cable length, most drives would function better on any overclocked system, so why was it necessary to add trace length and move the drive to the very end of the IDE cable?
The explanation is actually very straightforward and leads directly into the definitions of the current UATA cables. All high-speed data transfer cables need termination at the end of any signal path. In the easiest case, termination is just a resistor to ground that absorbs voltage amplitudes also known as signals. If such a termination is missing at the end of the cable, the signal will bounce back and eventually interfere with any forward-moving signal at any point in between. Any drive, though, will act as a terminator but it should be clear that termination is effective only if it is at the end of the cable and not somewhere in between. The proof was in the pudding, that is, by cutting off the tail of the IDE cable, the same drive would suddenly work on the same middle connector that did not function before. At the time, we thought of it as black magic but I still have my 4" home-made, single drive IDE cables that are working flawlessly.
Ultra ATA cables
Aside from signal reflection, another major problem of the 40 wire cables was the electrical cross-talk between data and command lines. Deterioration of signal integrity because of cross talk increases dramatically with cable length, which is the reason for the twisted pair specifications of CAT-5 Ethernet cables, just to give one example. Electrical cross-talk can successfully be eliminated by inserting shields between the individual data wires and this is exactly the reason why Ultra ATA/66 and higher are using 80 wires since 40 of these wires are tied to ground and act as shields between the signal wires.
In addition, UATA/66 cables always have one connector that, by definition, has to be connected to the mainboard, one connector on the far end that is the master or single drive and one connector that is for the slave device in the middle of the chain. The ratio between the cable segments is one of the factors but the real issue is the fact that only on the blue connector are the shield wires connected to ground. After reading the above, there should be no question regarding the rationale behind this arrangement.
Rounded Cables
Some companies have gotten really cute with the design of what has become known as rounded cables. Depending on the manufacturer, the ribbons are sliced into single or multiple strands and then bundled tightly. In most cases, there should be no problems, however, there have been numerous suspicions on many bulletin boards about rounded cables causing higher coaster rates while burning CDs. Likewise, users of rounded cables appear to suffer from abnormally high failure rates of HDDs. Again, this could be pure coincidence but it is food for thought, at least.
Removable Drive Racks
Aside from the speculations about rounded cables, there are some hard data on removable drive racks. Removable drive racks are casings that can be inserted into a 5.25 drive bay and which hold a HDD inside a casing that can slide in and out the drive bay to lock into a connector in the back of the device. Even though this kind of gizmo does not allow hot swapping of HDDs, it allows removal of a drive at the turn of a key or so the manufacturers claim.
We tested several of these devices with the IBM 60GXP and the unfortunate result was that not a single drive survived in the removable rack for more than a few hours. Symptoms usually started with lagging of the system to go to the Windows splash screen after the POST. This lag continued to get progressively worse over several reboots until the drive finally was no longer recognized at all.
Interestingly, if the drive was removed from the removable racks during the initial stages of errors and hooked up to a standard UATA cable, full functionality was restored immediately. Whenever we waited until the drive was no longer recognized, switching back could not resolve the problems anymore.
A repetition of the above background appears like carrying owls to Athens but imagine an additional interface with rerouting of the signals from the original cable to a snap-in connector and from there through an additional cable inside the "coffin" to the drive. In short, adding three additional interfaces does not appear a good idea. Per se, though, the concept is great, though, only, don't use it with anything faster than a UATA/66 drive.
On the round cable issue, I am using them.. Overclocking
Overclocking the system per se does not impose a direct threat to the HDD, however, things change once the PCI frequency goes beyond 38 MHz. Some older drives like the IBM Deskstar5 series would simply corrupt all data, some others like the Western Digitals were running fine up to 42 MHz PCI frequency without problems. The same was true for the older Samsung drives, however, those drives had pitiful performance anyway so we won't talk about them. Factors that influence the stability of the drive at higher IDE frequencies are amongst other things the quality and, as silly as it may appear, the installation of the UATA cables used.
Incorrect Orientation of UATA Cables
Before the days of Ultra DMA 33, IDE cables were available in about any form and shape and length. Some ultra-long cables were up to 24 and 27" long and meant to be used in full tower, others had the middle connectors in all kinds of positions. UDMA/33 brought on some more stringent limitations on the cable length and positioning of the middle connector and while the specs still left open the question of which connector had to be used for master or slaves, certain high-speed drives like the WesternDigital WDC22500, WDC24300 or WDC26400 would either not run or else suffer from extremely compromised longevity when hooked up to the center connector as single drive on that particular channel. This phenomenon was as puzzling (after all, there should not be any difference since the same wires are used) as it was consistent between users and chipsets. The main reason why the phenomenon was so counterintuitive was that with shorter cable length, most drives would function better on any overclocked system, so why was it necessary to add trace length and move the drive to the very end of the IDE cable?
The explanation is actually very straightforward and leads directly into the definitions of the current UATA cables. All high-speed data transfer cables need termination at the end of any signal path. In the easiest case, termination is just a resistor to ground that absorbs voltage amplitudes also known as signals. If such a termination is missing at the end of the cable, the signal will bounce back and eventually interfere with any forward-moving signal at any point in between. Any drive, though, will act as a terminator but it should be clear that termination is effective only if it is at the end of the cable and not somewhere in between. The proof was in the pudding, that is, by cutting off the tail of the IDE cable, the same drive would suddenly work on the same middle connector that did not function before. At the time, we thought of it as black magic but I still have my 4" home-made, single drive IDE cables that are working flawlessly.
Ultra ATA cables
Aside from signal reflection, another major problem of the 40 wire cables was the electrical cross-talk between data and command lines. Deterioration of signal integrity because of cross talk increases dramatically with cable length, which is the reason for the twisted pair specifications of CAT-5 Ethernet cables, just to give one example. Electrical cross-talk can successfully be eliminated by inserting shields between the individual data wires and this is exactly the reason why Ultra ATA/66 and higher are using 80 wires since 40 of these wires are tied to ground and act as shields between the signal wires.
In addition, UATA/66 cables always have one connector that, by definition, has to be connected to the mainboard, one connector on the far end that is the master or single drive and one connector that is for the slave device in the middle of the chain. The ratio between the cable segments is one of the factors but the real issue is the fact that only on the blue connector are the shield wires connected to ground. After reading the above, there should be no question regarding the rationale behind this arrangement.
Rounded Cables
Some companies have gotten really cute with the design of what has become known as rounded cables. Depending on the manufacturer, the ribbons are sliced into single or multiple strands and then bundled tightly. In most cases, there should be no problems, however, there have been numerous suspicions on many bulletin boards about rounded cables causing higher coaster rates while burning CDs. Likewise, users of rounded cables appear to suffer from abnormally high failure rates of HDDs. Again, this could be pure coincidence but it is food for thought, at least.
Removable Drive Racks
Aside from the speculations about rounded cables, there are some hard data on removable drive racks. Removable drive racks are casings that can be inserted into a 5.25 drive bay and which hold a HDD inside a casing that can slide in and out the drive bay to lock into a connector in the back of the device. Even though this kind of gizmo does not allow hot swapping of HDDs, it allows removal of a drive at the turn of a key or so the manufacturers claim.
We tested several of these devices with the IBM 60GXP and the unfortunate result was that not a single drive survived in the removable rack for more than a few hours. Symptoms usually started with lagging of the system to go to the Windows splash screen after the POST. This lag continued to get progressively worse over several reboots until the drive finally was no longer recognized at all.
Interestingly, if the drive was removed from the removable racks during the initial stages of errors and hooked up to a standard UATA cable, full functionality was restored immediately. Whenever we waited until the drive was no longer recognized, switching back could not resolve the problems anymore.
A repetition of the above background appears like carrying owls to Athens but imagine an additional interface with rerouting of the signals from the original cable to a snap-in connector and from there through an additional cable inside the "coffin" to the drive. In short, adding three additional interfaces does not appear a good idea. Per se, though, the concept is great, though, only, don't use it with anything faster than a UATA/66 drive.
However I always check for qualified and quality ones before buying.. (mine is from CoolerMaster) 
This post has been edited by lex: Feb 13 2006, 12:15 PM
Quote
.. just kidding ya?. yep i agree with lex.
. my hdd is hotter than my cpu la... >40c. 
.. u never cant take anything for granted. 
BTW i will open up my case once a while to check the dust condition. And i DIY some filter in front of the fan so it wont be too dusty. But some times i wonder what should i use to clean pc components, vacum cleaner? Some say it will damage your hardware with static. Same to brush, unless i have to spend some money to buy compressed air. I read in some article someone actually wash his mobo with water then later make sure its 100% dry before using it 
i using some upsided-down hdd for quite sometimes and it has nothing happen yet .....
.I think it can be done since the disk in there not scratched .....can it?
..
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