Welcome to my technological blog site.
As so many of us do, a lifelong passion for technology can prop up certain niche interests, of which mechanical storage devices is one such hobby that is covered on this website. In 2009, my personal interest in hard drives took off, which has resulted in my possession of several hundred different models over a decade later. The purpose of this site, alongside my YouTube channel, is to ensure I document these drives before they meet their inevitable fate of mass failure.
I aim to make my posts as accessible as possible to the general hobbyist, but sometimes it can be difficult to tone-back specific language. While I’m certainly no scholar of magnetic media, I hold a bachelor’s degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering, with a specialisation in Power Systems & Automation. While my full-time work is often relevant to the industry in terms of logic, PLC’s and control systems, there are always many gaps between personal and theoretical knowledge of such intricate devices. As a result, please take the following disclaimer to mind.
All information on this site is based on personal knowledge, experience and/or assumption. Much research is usually done before a statement is produced, but mistakes can be made. Sourced entities reflect data which has been externally grabbed, in order to empower a specific point. It’s worth comparing sources, alongside questioning elements of dubious or non-specific nature, before coming to a conclusion yourself.
I am not an expert by any means on many subjects discussed within this site’s content, thus I am openly welcome to corrections and/or suggestions, which can be sent through any chosen contact method found on the contact page above.
Tidbits (not of the Western Digital type…)
This website is hosted in the Netherlands by one of my home servers. I apologise for any latency or performance issues, this isn’t a powerful machine we’re talking about here. For the curious, this site is hosted with a Lenovo ThinkServer TS100 (only the shell being original, at this point in time), utilising several Toshiba N300 NAS (HDWG440) 4TB drives on the latest version of Xubuntu LTS.
If you’re experiencing downtime, latency or performance issues with this site, please contact me using the “About” page above.
Testing & Recording Procedures
All recordings are performed using a Shure SM58 dynamic/cardioid microphone. 3.5″ models usually have a recording distance of 5cm, 2.5″ models range from 3-5cm.
Recording settings are based on each particular drive, but in most instances preamp gain is set to +20dB. This raw audio capture is then normalised in post, reducing any clipping and approximating a consistent audio output level, thus matching prior uploads.
Some may notice a persistent hiss in drive recordings if using headphones or higher end audio equipment, this is an unavoidable part of such high preamp gain and may be more noticable with modern drives as normalisation is completed. While a low-pass filter can help with this, it also changes the dynamics of the drive being recorded, which is why this is not a post-edit technique used in this environment. It’s not an ideal recording setup, but it isn’t the main purpose of the equipment being used.
The software used for this is usually a mixture of REAPER for recording and Audacity for normalisation. This may differ somewhat depending on if slight EQ is required, which is processed manually using TDR Nova, under REAPER.
Pictures are taken with a Canon PowerShot SX20 IS and/or iPad Air Gen 4.
