Cardboard as a hard drive cradle?

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I want to build another computer, and I've got two 500gb laptop drives sitting here going unused. I'd like to use at least one of them in the new build, but the underside of a hard drive is always "naked", with circuitry exposed. I don't want it sitting on the "floor" of a full sized metal hard drive bay.

What would make good insulation? Would a simple thin sheet of cardboard be enough? I'm not sure how much heat a hard drive generates when it's operating.

Cardboard As A Hard Drive Cradle?

howtolosethatdata.exe

Usually the case provides just enough room for the hard drives to not short circuit but why not use another slot? How much room do you have? Can't you mount it higher?

You've missed the key point in this thread. It's a laptop drive being installed into a PC. There IS no slot meant for it, so I'm having to make SOME kind of "adapter", or at least something to shield the exposed circuitry from physical contact with the metal bay.

I'm not sure what your "howtolosethatdata.exe" thing is supposed to mean.

Are you claiming physical contact with cardboard will somehow erase the magnetic info on a hard drive? Are you addressing my fear of heat being involved?

What are you trying to say?

Sorry I was kinda in joking mode, should keep that else where. I did miss the point that its a laptop, I would be concerned about heat is why I was making the joke that it'll probably catch fire. I would suggest if you are technically inclined to look into a 3D printed solution, you can rent out someone printer without having a lot of money and you'll look much more professional.

Well, it doesn't have to look professional. The computer won't be for anything but personal use and it won't have an open display window on the side of the case, just vent openings. None of that fancy "make your computer pretty" stuff for me.

The heat thing does worry me a bit, so I'll have to look for some other solution besides cardboard. Maybe I'll just lay the drive upside down and figure how to get the cables to still connect.

Many thanks.

This reminded me of a crazy SSD cradle idea I saw.

Get a 2.5 to 3.5 HDD mounting bracket.
They hold a 2.5" drive like a laptop HDD or SSD and mount securely in a 3.5" bay in a PC. No problems with the controller board shorting out or banging around when you move the computer. My local computer shop sells them for $3, cheap as chips.

You can also place it in an external case and connect it to the puter via use eSATA or USB3.

Yeah, I finally realized there might be such a thing, and found them on Amazon. Ordered one and it's on its way.

Thank you!

Well, it has to have a normal connection, because the computer will only have one drive. This will be the actual drive the computer is booting from. That has to go inside, right? would eSATA or an external USB connection make for a bootable drive?

If your BIOS/UEFI supports it, you can boot from whatever you want.

To get back to your original question: for insulation, you can place the drive in a standard ESD bag. I used to put some on the "floor" and just have them in bags (or laying on top of them), connected to power and the IO interface. I do not know if it will cause any heating problems, but you can try it.

Not recommended. Cardboard is unbounded and fragile, it would certainly shorten the lifespan of the said hard disk by exposing it to unnecessary shock etc.

I realize you may already have ordered a proper mounting adapter, but yes, you can use cardboard as a drive "cradle". The only time I would hesitate to do so is with 7200 rpm or higher drives, as the metal-to-metal contact of the normal mounting does remove some heat. Also, if you use cardboard be sure to allow for as much air circulation as you can; don't encase the drive in cardboard as it is a heat insulator.

In 2004, I was part of a "Flash Mob Supercomputer" calculation attempt. It was BYOS (bring your own system). The system I threw together *literally* overnight was built inside an external SCSI drive case. The 4200 rpm laptop hard drive (only used to boot the system) was wrapped in cardboard and stuffed into the space where a drive cage would normally go. Afterwards, I used it as a 24/7 home web server (I miss that ISP...) for a year or three & then retired it to storage.

Here's Google's first rack of servers, cobbled together. Notice the cardboard slip the drive is sitting on. Its in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, should you ever visit the S.F. Bay area.



Also, this from a few years back (you can google [ cardboard pc case ] for DIY examples). Point is cardboard is just another material with properties such as non-conductivity that allow it to be used in such ways.