We had a hard disk die in our home network server. Fortunately, it was mirrored & nothing was lost.
Partly out of curiosity and partly to make sure the personal files were permanently inaccessible, I've taken it apart. Most of the innerds are recognizable from previous fits of such surgery, but there's something new in this one.
It's a retangular capsule, approximately 7/8" long, and about 3/8" square, made of clear plastic, with a soft white concave seal on top. Inside, it is filled with tiny (~1/32" diameter or smaller) black beads.
I figure it's either desicant (never seen black desicant before), or vibration damping material (like lead shot), only I can't imagine that they allow that much lead in anything commercial these days. I pried it out, and it appears to be vented to the outside world through a tiny hole (and an eqaully tiny labyrinth of small passages), and it's quite light, so lead is out. Venting desicant to the outside world doesn't make much sense either, unless the white stuff is some sort of semi-permeable membrane.
Any ideas?
Thanks!
Doug White