Harddrive left in cold.

[dave343]

I left a harddrive out in my car today with -1 temps. It's been about 8hrs and I just now got it from my car, when is it safe to power back up?

 

[Uberbob102000]

AFAIK you should be fine by just starting it up.

 

[bbz_Ghost]

Let it sit at room temperature for an hour or two then fire it up, shouldn't be an issue at all. No need to "preheat" it or anything, so put the blowdryer back in the closet.

It'll be fine; the temps don't matter as long as it's not in operation. No worse than tossing it in a swimming pool and then letting the external circuit board dry off. The inner mechanism is hermetically sealed so water wouldn't get inside either.

An hour or two at room temps will be fine.

 

[Hurdler]

As with any electronics that have been left out in the cold, you MUST let them naturally warm up to room temperature. If you don't do this, you risk having condensation form inside the drive. If you let it sit out for a few hours and then turn it on you'll be fine though.

@bbz_Ghost: I thought that hard drives had an air hole in them. Wouldn't water get in them and mess with stuff?

 

[leSLIe]

The inner mechanism is hermetically sealed so water wouldn't get inside either.

Hard drives are NOT hermetically sealed, they have a small vent that allows internal and external pressure to equalize. there is a very fine filter there though that keeps out the dust.[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Helvetica][/FONT]

 

[bbz_Ghost]

Hard drives are hermetically sealed to keep any possible contaminants out of the actual inner casing. It's not an air hole, no. One microscopic bit of dust (no pun intended) can wreak havoc with a hard drive considering the heads never come into physical contact with the platters unlike most every other form of magnetic media. The platters spin so fast they actually create a bit of turbulence from the tiny amount of air inside the cavity; the head(s) actually 'float' on that turbulence a few nanometers above the platter surface.

If something gets in the way - that microscopic bit of dust, for example (again, no pun intended) - or the head(s) physically come into contact with the surface of the platters, you get what's called a "head crash" where physical damage occurs. Very bad thing, but pretty rare in this day and age.

Most times when hard drives go bad it's either the surface of the platters had a bad coating to begin with (that shows up later on as bad sectors where some data is lost due to weaker magnetic fields in the coating), or the bearings in the motor will freeze up. Sometimes the swing arm actuator craps out itself, meaning the heads simply won't move from the parked position also.

Lots of issues... but no air holes, no.

 

[nick8571]

Hard drives are hermetically sealed to keep any possible contaminants out of the actual inner casing. It's not an air hole, no.

This is a common misconception - consumer-level hard drives are *not* hermetically sealed. The "do not cover" breather holes equalise pressure with ambient (they have a micron-level carbon filter), which is why most HDDs are not rated for reliable use above 3000m or thereabouts (at altitude, the Bernoulli effect can't be relied on to guarantee a consistent fly height and prevent head crashes).

If the drive were hermetically sealed, the air pressure inside the case would go up and down as the drive's temperature changed in operation, again causing the likelihood of head crashes.

There are indeed hermetically sealed drives designed for use at altitude or in vacuum, but they're more of a design challenge and therefore a good deal more expensive as you'd expect.

 

[unhappy_mage]

Hard drives are hermetically sealed to keep any possible contaminants out of the actual inner casing.

Not true. Disassemble a disk for yourself and see.

The connection to the external environment and pressure occurs through a small hole in the enclosure (about 0.5 mm in diameter), usually with a carbon filter on the inside (the breather filter, see below).