WD World’s Only See-Through hdd

Tuesday 10 January 2006 @ 9:37 pm

So far, all the harddisks in our computers are sealed with solid metal. So we can’t really see what are the major components inside unless we break it. I was lucky to know what is actually inside a harddisk because I used to be a technician in Komag while waiting for my SPM result and I was in the production floor. Komag is one of the major suppliers of harddisk platter (the disk) in the world to all harddisk manufacturers, such as Western Digital, Seagate, etc.

If you have not seen what’s inside a haddisk, now you have the chance to take a glance of the major components, at least from the top view. Western Digital Corp. (WD) has just introduced the world’s only harddisk with a see-through lens on top of the harddisk, labeled WD Raptor X. Now you are able to see the moving parts via the lens which the read and write action of the drive’s head and disk assembly can be viewed while the drive delivers data. Basically, you will see the movement of read/write head and the platter spinning when the harddisk is running.

As a summary, WD Raptor X drives feature :-

10,000 RPM
150 GB capacity
1.5 GB/s external data rate (Max)
4.6 ms average seek time
16 MB cache
5-year warranty

For detailed specification, click here.
For more pictures of WD Raptor X, click here.

Well, stuffs like this don’t come cheap as usual, WD Raptor X 150 GB (model WD1500AHFD) hard drives are expected to be shipping in early 2006 and its retail pricing as listed in WD website for WD Raptor X is USD$349.99.

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6 Responses to 'WD World’s Only See-Through hdd'

alexallied - January 11th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
fuahhh, nice piece of hardware there. But hor, do you think it’s worthwhile to pay extra for something that sits its life in a system box, somewhere we couldn’t and don’t tend to see everyday? Hehe.
alexallied - January 11th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
fuahhh, nice piece of hardware there. But hor, do you think it’s worthwhile to pay extra for something that sits its life in a system box, somewhere we couldn’t and don’t tend to see everyday? Hehe.
SapiensBryan - January 11th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
The only practical use of the see-through lens I can think of is it’s easier to check whether the hdd is working when you are doing troubleshooting. Usually we can only listen to the voice of the spinning platter using the fully sealed hdd, now we can see is the read/write head moving. LoL…
SapiensBryan - January 12th, 2006 at 12:38 am
The only practical use of the see-through lens I can think of is it’s easier to check whether the hdd is working when you are doing troubleshooting. Usually we can only listen to the voice of the spinning platter using the fully sealed hdd, now we can see is the read/write head moving. LoL…
alexallied - January 12th, 2006 at 3:23 am
agree, it’s pretty useful when it comes to that.
alexallied - January 12th, 2006 at 11:23 am
agree, it’s pretty useful when it comes to that.