Forum Home
PC World Chat
Thread ID: 70628	2006-07-10 05:02:00	How do you make Hard Drives?	Memorex (10703)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
469817	2006-07-12 09:15:00	[edit: post removed. That was not going to help the situation. Just walk away from a thread rather than add to the fire with the name calling]	andrew93 (249)
469818	2006-07-12 09:22:00	Seagate used to have a bit on their site that was described the processes of manufacture, and how generally clever Seagate were. I've just been there tho, and can't find anything remotely like that there now.	personthingy (1670)
469819	2006-07-12 09:24:00	Going to clamp down on this. No more comments that are not helpful nor in the spirit of "keeping it friendly" from all parties - ta muchly.	Jen (38)
469820	2006-07-12 11:49:00	To those having a wee bit of fun ... remember this is not a good idea with a new member. You have no idea whether they will appreciate your comments to their serious question, and it may put them off if they feel you are being smart and they are being made fun of. As you can see, it didn't go down too well. Best leave those sorts of comments to the regulars who you know can take it. Terry's and Billy's replies explain the difficulty in answering such a question. C'mon, his reaction was a bit over the top wasn't it? They're just havin a laugh...	Buff_K (691)
469821	2006-07-12 12:19:00	OK, let's be practical: The basic manufacturing phases as I see them are: 1) Survey the opposition, endeavour to predict future trends, look at plant capabilities and capacity, review budgets, set timelines, think about money. 2) Sort out and prioritise the wants and the needs. 3) Planning decisions, e.g. size, storage capacity, rotational speed, platter composition. 4) Draft the basic physical design in principle. 5) Scope the electronic controller and software requirements. 6) Initiate discussions with suppliers of components to ensure that supplies and development will meet requirements and timelines. 7) Plan factory production requirements in terms of technology and capacity, meet with bankers and venture capitalists, arrange capital investment and line of credit. 8) Set the hardware and software design teams at each others throats to decide what will be done in hardware and what will be done in software. 9) Start prototyping. 10) Throw away the plans and start again because Seagate/WD/Maxtor et al just trumped your new design by 6 months. 11) Take your design to the next level and prototype. 12) Carry out accelerated life testing, modify designs to make sure that at least 90% last until the warranty expires. 13) Contract production to China because there's no way you can take the technology that far ahead and still make a profit if you make the drives locally. 14) Lay off workers and close local plants. 15) Arrange contract warehousing and distribution. How to actually make them? Nobody will tell you much but there is a lot of precision engineering, exotic materials, microminiaturised electronics and megadollars spent on clean rooms. I started out serious here, but I hit the wall when the true enormity of the design and manufacturing process hit me. That's one helluva project you have been set Memorex, because manufacturing doesn't start with the machines, that's where it finishes. Perhpas you could tell us what educational level you are working at and what your project brief was? IMHO the best you could hope to achieve would be a basic description of the manufacturing sequence from component supplies to diecasters, platter manufacturers, electronics subcontractors, software programmers and a raft of other suppliers through to final assembly and testing, packaging and distribution. To even attempt to describe the manufacturing processes would take a fairly substantial book, and so it starts to go back to how they work, then looking behind each function to see what hardware, electronics and software are involved, then stepping back once more to see how the subassemblies are manufactured and assembled. I resign. Cheers Billy 8-{) :xmouth:	Billy T (70)
469822	2006-07-12 13:49:00	THanks to EVERYONE WHO tryit to help me!!! I REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR HELP!!! :) and Andrew93 i dint call you anythink bad!! ***= W-T-F . . . . any way its over soo for get it . . . hope thouse people who gave me good information will help me!!!! :P and Thank you again for trying to help really appreciate it!!! :o	Memorex (10703)
469823	2006-07-12 14:35:00	ohh yes i forgot Billy T im 6th form doing a research how main computer componets have been made the last 3 componets i need to find is "hard drive", "BIOS chip" and "CMOS chips"...yeah i hope i can find anythink on them!!!	Memorex (10703)
469824	2006-07-12 14:49:00	To those having a wee bit of fun . . . remember this is not a good idea with a new member . You have no idea whether they will appreciate your comments to their serious question, and it may put them off if they feel you are being smart and they are being made fun of . As you can see, it didn't go down too well . Best leave those sorts of comments to the regulars who you know can take it . Terry's and Billy's replies explain the difficulty in answering such a question . Jen . . . the obvious is that this is such a vague question . . . and frankly, the "make hard drive" part of it leaves so much to the imagination: Is this some little kid asking "why's the sky blue"? Is there any purpose to this question? OK> . . flippancy aside, it just seemed to me to be a poorly formed question and I was only pointing that out, although in a round-about way . . . and I wanted the person to re-think their question with a little more precision, that's was all . Sorry to have offended, as I just wanted a question formed and asked that could be answered, that's all .	SurferJoe46 (51)
469825	2006-07-12 21:21:00	All t hough the web is notably short of company's bragging about how clever they are by showing us the inside of their factorys, i did find this, which focuses on what HDDs are, how they work, and that sort of thing... en.wikipedia.org Does that help?	personthingy (1670)
469826	2006-07-13 07:14:00	ohh yes i forgot Billy T im 6th form doing a research how main computer componets have been made the last 3 componets i need to find is "hard drive", "BIOS chip" and "CMOS chips"...yeah i hope i can find anythink on them!!! Well Memorex, had you told us that in the first instance we would have known where to pitch the answers. Clearly you do not need in-depth responses, because all chips are essentially made by the same processes, so if you have already done CPU, Memory, Video, Sound and IO chips, Bios and CMOS will be the same, though the bios is a computer function while CMOS is a fabrication technology so there's still a little confusion there. How many pages is this project supposed to occupy, and how long are you expected to work on it? I'm not trying to be rude either, but I hope your posting english is your casual style, because if you write your homework with the same free and easy "no grammar, no spelling, no puctuation" style you are using here it is going to be quite hard for your teacher to assess your work. When you have finished writing it, do use a spell and grammar check to clean it up. Good luck with the final stages, it will be quite a challenge and I hope you are successful. Cheers Billy 8-{) :thumbs:	Billy T (70)
1 2 3