Dear friends and colleagues,
It is great pleasure for me to announce that in next few days HDDSurgery will start selling our newest product -
HDDS HGST 3.5'' Ramp Set.
Set will contain 5 pairs of head replacement tools and one pair of Support tools, which purpose will be explained later). Those tools will support safer and easier head replacement on more then 150 different Hitachi 3.5'' drives (PLAT, PLA, VLSA, VLAT, DLAT, DLA, CLA, GLAT, GLA, SLA, DLE, BLA, KLA, KLAT, KLSA, ALA, ALE, ALS...) from 29 confirmed families.
I will use this topic to present to you process of development and some of the problems which we encountered during it.
IBM and consequently HGST (Hitachi Global Store Technologies) were the first manufacturers which introduced ramp parking system of the hard drive heads.
HDDSurgery plan was to develop set of the tools which will secure easy and safe head replacement on all or the most of HGST hard drives which park their heads on the ramp. After some period of time during which we have analyzed many different models of HGST hard drives we have come to conclusion that developing of solution for easy and safe head replacement as well as classification of HGST hard drive models won't be an easy task.
First obstacle which we encountered was
just one available technological hole on head arms of the most of HGST hard drives. Head assemblies of hard drives from other manufacturers have in the most of cases two or more than two technological holes (which manufacturers use for assembling, measuring..). These technological holes are very suitable for us as designers of data recovery tools, as we use and need one hole for mounting the ramp tool and other for locking the tool on the heads. One available technological hole on the head assembly must be used for mounting of the ramp tool and classical method of locking the tool on the heads (which is used in our previous ramp sets) is impossible as there is no another available hole. We have solved this problem by using method of
"side-locking". Ramp tools are locked by placing safety pin from the left side of the heads (detailed explanation in manual). So, all of the tools in HGST 3.5'' Ramp Set have implemented side-locking system except p1w, which is the only one where classical method of locking could be implemented.
We have also noticed that there are
many different mechanics and that
unification of use of future ramp tools will perhaps be the most difficult task in development.
First huge difference between HGST models is
platter thickness. HGST use two types of 3.5'' platters - thin - 1.27mm (≈0.05'') and thick - 1.75mm (≈0.07'').
Second difference is
ramp color. HGST hard drives are made with ramps from
white and orange (or yellow) plastics. HGST ceased with production of hard drives with white ramps somewhere during 2008.
Our first assumption was that first and second difference are coincident in terms of that
thin platter drives have white ramps and thick platter drives have orange ones. And this actually was very good base for start of classification and development of HGST ramp tools.
So we have firstly developed ramp tools
p1w and
p2w (w - white) for 1 and 2 platter hard drive with white ramps. During development of p1 and p2 tools for 1 and 2 platter drives with orange ramps we have realized that there is no need for ramp tool p1, because ramp tool
p2 covers both 1 and 2 platters drives.
Our next task was to develop tool for hard drives with 3 platters and assumption was that we will also need two tools (for white and orange ramp hard drives). But in this point of development we have not met HGST hard drives which have 3 platters and white ramps so we come to conclusion that p3w tool won't be needed. We have developed ramp tool
p3 which supports hard drives with orange ramps. However tool p3 can be also used on many HGST drives which have 2 platters but 3 tracks on the orange ramp. These drives are also supported with the tool p3.
Developing the tools for
HGST drives with a larger number of platters (4 and 5) was the greatest challenge for us.
Lower and upper magnet of these drives are connected and upper magnet can't be disassembled by classical method (needle-nose pliers). This means that heads must be disassembled together with the magnets and that position of heads assembly in relation to magnets must be secured. So besides ramp tool
p5, which supports both 4 and 5 platters drives, we had to develop
Support tool and implement solution which will secure safe heads and magnets replacement on these hard drives (full procedure in manual - animation -->
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4MNfGMi7pY&feature=youtu.be).
During analysis of different types of HGST hard drives with a larger number of platters we have realized that manufacturers still use thin platters due to limited available space. Regardless newer models (post 2008) have orange ramps just like all other newer HGST hard drives.
I hope that I have succeed to bring our newest product functionality and its process of development a little closer to you.
Manual, as well as video and animation guide are ready. Prototype is fully functional and first series are currently in the production process.
Everything is ready for hundreds of successful head swaps on Hitachi 3.5'' drives.
We will keep you updated and expect update very soon!
Regards to you all from HDDSurgery team from Belgrade, Serbia!
FAQ
Search
Login
Register
HDDGURU FILES
