DIY "Waterproof" Hard Drive
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,566 words · ~7 min read
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the idea of electronics being waterproof isn't exactly new I mean most Flagship
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phones whether you're talking your s7s or your iPhone 7S whatever the case may
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be they're designed to go bloop into the water yay look at that they survived
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it's amazing okay we've all seen this before but what if you could
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waterproof a computer hard
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drive impractical yes
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impossible let's find out
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Corsair's 570x midtower case features
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four tempered glass panels check it out at the link in the video description so
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the first and most obvious problem we need to solve is the exposed PCB that
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you'll find on the bottom of pretty much any modern hard drive if you know a
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thing or two about water you'll know that while it's starts s non-electrically conductive as soon as
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it starts to pick up any impurities or metal ions it quickly becomes conductive
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and will cause any electronic devices that are submerged in it for long enough
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to short out and or be permanently damaged so I picked myself up a can of
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mg chemicals conformal coating number
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419c 340g it's xylene free toine free
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low vocc if you're into that sort of thing but more importantly it protects
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against moisture dirt dust and apparently thermal shocks and insulates
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against high voltage arcs shorts and static discharge so Step One is we are
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going to treat our PCB with this stuff
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okay so let's get started you grab any old hard drive you want and go to town
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right wrong so most hard drives today
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are actually full of good oldfashioned
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air and they've got these breather ports that allow them to stay at the same
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internal pressure as the atmosphere around them this is imperative for their
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functionality and this is actually the reason why even when you submerge them
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in a non-conductive fluid like a mineral oil cooled computer we have a build blog
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that you can check out here where we actually explained all of this they
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would still cease to work because through these breather ports the mineral
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oil or any other fluid would seep in and Gunk up the internals of the hard drive
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but there's been a recent development in hard drive technology that leads me to
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believe that perhaps we could run a
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drive submerged in fluid this is a
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Seagate Barracuda Pro it is a helium
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filed drive now the point of helium filled drives was more efficient
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operation since helium is less dense than air so when you're spinning the
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spindles around there's less resistance but it also means they had to seal the
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insides of the drives because if the helium got out then you would lose the
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benefit right so this is the drive that I will be using 99% isopropyl
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alcohol and
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bloop don't worry kids this is definitely safe I've done this many
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times I'm a professional now let's make
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ourselves somewhere to spray cuz I think the spray booth is over in the on the
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other side I have to assume this stuff wouldn't be very good to inhale
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so don't
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breathe okay check this out so I sprayed
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the crap out of it like it is pretty
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pretty gooped on there and uh it's
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actually like built up around the outsides of these chips so what I'm
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hoping is we have achieved the water resistance that we need and done so
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without damaging the ability of this thing to make contact with the places it
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has to so this is where it gets really
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sketch well those are all definitely
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worn so we're going to reinstall
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this on the hard drive and test it
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outside before we try to put it in the water
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mhm mhm H
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mhm so it's possible that the painting that I did on
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the PCB covered up these metal contacts
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for data and power so we're just going to give it the old have you tried
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unplugging it and plugging it back in
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repeatedly try and scrape those connectors
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clean that does seem to be making a difference I don't know if you can see
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that close up there but you can see the conformal coating is uh
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coming up I don't even think it's spinning
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up H yeah this drive is definitely not
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powered up okay so it's a power issue we can work with
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that let's get out the old
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scraper just go at it a bit more aggressively here can't imagine just
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spraying conformal coating on it would have destroyed it found the problem
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there were three contact points under here I didn't sand the ones for power
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for the motor so of course it's not spinning
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up let's go ahead and give that the old
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you know hard drive sanding
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technique yes okay there it is there's our 10 tbte
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Drive okay
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so it's
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time time for what time to figure out um
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what data I can copy for a test I am
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basically going to take the drive and
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put it in we're going to see what
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happens what the hell is this okay so
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it's some kind of land issue I will deal with that later in the
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meantime I've got a USB type-c
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Ethernet adapter here and I've have started three
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transfers each of like 2.3 terabytes
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worth of data so you can see here we are
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transferring to the adventure drive from
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the network so this should take quite some time now this is where it gets real
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so I'm going to take this
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drive which is currently right data and ever so
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carefully cautiously and not at all
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recklessly oh this pains
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me I'm actually in pain right
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now okay I am liquid
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cooling the hard
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drive okay I'm halfway in
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in about 3/4 of the way
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in is it still
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transferring still going let's go get some more
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water okay so to absolutely
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prove that there's no smoke in mirrors that's not mineral
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oil here's a new ug look tap water tap
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water
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AF let's top it up still
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transferring but don't take the camera off me we're proving this is a continuous shot here we go okay tap
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water AF there goes the power
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connector and the drive is submerged
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still transfering
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no okay so let's get the moisture I think the power shorted I think that's
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what happened here uhoh I don't know what effect alcohol has on the conformal
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cating um did not think that
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through okay so it's been Popp in kind
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of in and out of being detected um I think it's to do with the
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power connector but quite honestly see
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here if we try again now boom it's transferring get now it's gone I don't
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know what we were trying to prove anyway putting it in water because it has no
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real practical application so let's just go get some
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mineral oil so I found all the mineral oil from
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the mineral oil PC I sincerely hope that I'm not going
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to make a mess here but as you guys know I'm allergic
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to funnels so uh the Chan is seem pretty
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good here we go
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sh wonderful now
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okay so here we go can it handle mineral oil I want to
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see a longer sustained transfer here kids that's what I want to see so you
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saw it here first
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folks liquid cooled hard
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drive hopefully my editors have found some way to turn what's happened in the
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last half an hour or so into some kind of coherent narrative and hopefully you
10:15
guys enjoyed it if you aren't familiar with mass drop they're the community
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where users discuss products that they're interested in buying and then
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Mast drop talks to the manufacturer and negotiates a bulk order at a discounted
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price and they're Now featuring featuring a drop for the high-fi man re
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IM they have 9mm Dynamic drivers and
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they ship with two pairs of silicone ear tips and they're only about $35 which is
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pretty sweet so check them out and other drops at the link in the video description down below thanks for
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watching this video If You disliked it you know what to do but if you liked it hit that like button get subscribed
10:49
maybe even consider checking out our merch store where you can buy cool shirts like this one or our link to
10:53
Amazon where you can buy stuff like what we featured in the video like I don't
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know maybe this 10 TB hard drive that apparently can run
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under not water but non-conductive fluid
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now that you're done doing all that stuff you're probably wondering what to watch next so check out our
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video oh excuse me my throat our video
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on the desk PC that you see right here part three the conclusion is up and
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ready for your viewing enjoyment