Give Your Legacy Manufacturing Equipment a New Lease of Life

Many PC- and PLC-based manufacturing systems in use today were designed decades ago and their data storage devices are electromagnetic hard disk drives (HDDs), most likely IDE, SCSI or early SATA models. In some cases, floppy disk drives (FDDs) are still in use, with perhaps the most ironic example being that some semiconductor fabs still operate tools and machines – including photolithography steppers, etchers, and ion implanters – that use floppy disks.

These old technology drives all have mechanical/moving parts, such as the spindle motor and read/write heads, that wear over time. Even if the drive isn’t being used that often, the lubrication in the bearings can dry up or become viscous, which presents an additional electrical load when the drive is powered up.

If a hard disk drive goes unused for a very long period, the read/write heads can drop and contact the disk, and powering up the drive and spinning the disk can scratch the surface or even rip the heads from their mounts.

Because of the head-drop issue, HDDs that were purchased as spares (when the manufacturing equipment was new) and placed in long-term storage can fail when powered up.

Another long-term effect is degradation of the magnetic disks, leading to data corruption. The drive’s electronic components (most notably the capacitors) can fail over time too, changing the electrical characteristics of the drive and possibly making it more susceptible to power fluctuations and surges.

Most of the drive’s other components, such as transistors and integrated circuits, have a finite lifespan too, and even the drive’s firmware can become corrupted over time, preventing the drive from functioning properly or even making it totally unreadable.

Understandably, the life of an HDD or FDD can be shortened by environmental conditions such as thermal cycling (components will expand and contract with temperature), humidity (causing corrosion), dust/debris (causing heads to crash into the disk), and mechanical shock and vibration (also causing crashes).

When… Not If

Older drives and those manufactured with lower-quality parts are more likely to fail than newer, better-quality drives. As mentioned, the failure might be immediate in the case of drives taken from long-term storage.

For drives in regular use, it is likely that the drive will accumulate small errors over time. The drive will become slower, and its error correction codes (ECC – if it has any) will need to work harder. Eventually the drive will become unreadable or fail to power up.

If you have a computer-based manufacturing system that is more than 20 years old and it contains an HDD or FDD, drive failure is a case of when… not if. Understandably, the original drives are long obsolete, and in many cases the companies that made them are no longer around. But does the failure of an obsolete data drive mark the demise of your manufacturing system/equipment? Not at all.

Solid-State

The exact behaviour of any electromechanical drive – such as an HDD, FDD and even a magnetic tape drive – can be emulated using modern technology, and the drive will be a direct, form-fit-function replacement.

Moreover, the replacement can be preloaded with data copied from the original drive, so it will be a case of simply replacing the old drive with the new one, and the host system will not know the difference.

Compact Flash (CF) or CFast cards are the storage new storage media. They can take place of the original removable media, such as floppy disks or tapes, and they can take place the magnetic disk in the case of an HDD.

Because the replacement drive is solid state it is inherently more reliable, as it has no moving parts. It also draws less power and is quieter. In addition, the solid-state-based replacement can be given functionality the original drive never had.

However, do not wait for your legacy drive to fail as doing so could take your manufacturing system/equipment offline for weeks, and you could lose valuable data. It is better to plan for the replacement of the HDD or FDD now. We’re here to help.

Solid State Disks Ltd (SSDL)

Email: saleseurope@solidstatedisks.com
Phone: +44 (0)1189 323 499
Web: www.solidstatedisks.com