Rugged half-height magnetic disk drives

Citation

(1998), "Rugged half-height magnetic disk drives", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 70 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.1998.12770cad.003

Rugged half-height magnetic disk drives

Rugged half-height magnetic disk drives

Keywords Disk drives, Mountain Optech

Mountain Optech, Inc. announces that its 1, 2, 4 and 9 Gigabyte magnetic hard drives are now available as "half-height" drives. These smaller form factors enable higher capacity drives to fit in much smaller spaces, making the most of severely limited spaces such as aircraft cockpits. In Mountain Optech's "Severe environment" (SE) enclosure, which gives added protection for shock, vibration, temperature and altitude, the 1, 2 and 4 Gigabyte drives measure 1.63in high, and the 9 Gigabyte drive is 2.3in high. By increasing the form factor to 5.25in full-height, the enclosures can accommodate a removable drive module, giving virtually unlimited storage capacity and security options for highly sensitive, mission-critical data.

Mountain Optech's rugged half-height hard drives utilize a proprietary "tuneable" isolation system for lightweight peripherals and are built for reliable performance in severe environments. Using a series of elastomer rings, the drives can be "tuned" for various levels of shock and vibration. These COTS half-height drives are the perfect choice for mission-critical applications that require a reliable, high capacity storage unit.

The 1, 2, 4 and 9 Gigabyte drives can also be configured on a 6U VME card. A current application has the SE-9000 HD/HH mounted in a helicopter, taking full advantage of the ability to tune a common isolation system to a wide shock and vibration spectrum.

These drives can function in a wide variety of environments, including military and space mission control logging, commercial and military aircraft applications, transport of "on-the-move" operational systems, and field deployable logistics support systems. The half-height drives operate in all attitudes and at extreme altitudes. Temperature firmware and heaters provide wide operating temperature range. Conformal coating of the electronics provides moisture resistance, fungus resistance and reduces susceptibility to salt-fog as well as other environmental contaminants.

Details from Mountain Optech Inc., USA. Tel: +1 (303) 444 2851; Fax: +1 (303) 444 4431; E-mail: pm@mt-optec.com