Hey, Fred. On Tuesday 15 July 2008, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > The NAS unit comes with four empty metal trays that slide into the chassis. > You buy your own HDs. The disks are fastened into the U-shaped metal trays > by four screws. > > One disturbing thing is that the bottom of the U-shaped tray rests directly > against the back of the HD. On my HDs (500 GB Seagates), that side is > occupied by a printed circuit board (PCB), with nice, dense solders. > > The disk's PCB has a coat of varnish, but the solder points don't seem > insulated. Yet the metal tray covers this PCB and is flush against it > once the screws are in, with no clearance. > > Out of caution, I cut pieces of paper and taped them on the inside of the > trays to insulate the PCB from the metal (I didn't block any airflow doing > this. > > Is this setup normal? Am I paranoid and should I trust the varnish layer on > the PCB?
Actually I think you've got a healthy intelligent caution about this. If there are solder points exposed on the HD PCB then they should obviously not contact other conductive surfaces. I think the piece of paper was a good idea. If you want to use something more permanent, you might want to replace the paper with a layer of nonconductive plastic laminate with an adhesive backing that you cut to size. That's what I've seen typically used where there's a metal plate that has to come in close proximity to a PCB with exposed connections. And in rare instances I have actually seen HD's emit smoke from the HD controller when the back PCB was contacted in the wrong places. -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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