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Farming Hard Drives (2012)

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41 points floriangosse | 2 comments | 16 Oct 25 05:50 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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MarkusWandel ◴[22 Oct 25 17:16 UTC] No.45672207[source]▶
What fraction of external hard disks is still "shuckable" these days? I know the WD Passports aren't. The USB connector is directly on the drive's PCB, no SATA bridge.
replies(1): >>45672377 #
zampano ◴[22 Oct 25 17:28 UTC] No.45672377[source]▶
I think a lot of the larger form-factor/larger capacity models are still shuckable, though sometimes you still have to put kapton tape on one of the pins to allow it to work with a normal machine.
replies(2): >>45673249 #>>45674302 #
1. rzzzt ◴[22 Oct 25 18:31 UTC] No.45673249[source]▶
Pin 3 on the power connector used to be constant 3.3V, but its purpose changed to keeping the drive in a low-power shutdown state for enabling e.g. staggered spinup: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hdd-sata-power-disable-fea...
replies(1): >>45673752 #
2. ssl-3 ◴[22 Oct 25 19:12 UTC] No.45673752[source]▶
Yep.

And when that's a problem, it's fine to just cut and insulate 3.3v wire that feeds the power supply's SATA connectors.

After this modification, the machine thus becomes compatible with all SATA hard drives, whether old or new or shucked or whatever.

(Not much (if anything) in SATA land ever used 3.3v, and it's completely likely that nothing ever will. AFAICT, that voltage was deprecated with the release of revision 3.3 of the SATA specifications, from nearly a decade ago in February of '16.)