Antec Solo - are elastic bands bad for HDD circuit boards?

nabziF · Post by **nabziF** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 4:15 pm

I bought the Antec Solo along with 2 of the 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda drives, and used the elastic bands to mount both suspended (one using the bottom bands, one using the top bands). Less than 2 weeks after I got it, one drive appears to be bricked (not even the BIOS can identify it properly) and the other appears to be on its way out (thousands of reallocated bad blocks according to SMART status, and SeaTools keeps finding more errors no matter how many times I tell it to repair all bad blocks).

I have since come to find out there is a substantial level of complaints about Barracudas from the past year or so, 500GB+...I've checked my part/serial numbers on Seagate's site and it says they don't suffer from the bad firmware "freezing" problem that so many have experienced.

So I can't help but wonder: since the design of the suspension mounts pretty much means the bands touch the circuit board on the bottom of the drives...could that have caused static discharge or some other abnormal wear on the drives to cause them to prematurely fail?

Perhaps I installed it wrong; is there some sort of protective anti-static covering you're supposed to place between the board and the elastic bands?

Post by **CA_Steve** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 6:27 pm

seems unlikely.

Wibla · Post by **Wibla** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 7:00 pm

Drives tend to fail either shortly after being bought (DOA) or a long while after... so I wouldnt put the fault on the P150/Solo's hdd suspension.

Michael Sandstrom · Post by **Michael Sandstrom** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 8:50 pm

The Solo is one of the most popular cases here at SPCR and no unusual drive failures have not been noted previously. I have been running various Samsung HDs suspended in a Solo for years with no faults. The problem would seem to be the drives or perhaps dirty power.

PartEleven · Post by **PartEleven** » Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:09 pm

Pretty sure it's just the drives dying and nothing to do with the suspension. Despite what Seagate says, the "firmware update" didn't fully solve the problem. Users on other forums are still reporting stuttering and drive failures even with the revised firmware.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:21 am

I've been using Solo HD suspension for a couple of years with a couple of different drives (only one at a time) none of the drives I've used has had a problem in that system.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Thu Jun 04, 2009 5:32 am

nabziF wrote:*snip*
I have since come to find out there is a substantial level of complaints about Barracudas from the past year or so, 500GB+...I've checked my part/serial numbers on Seagate's site and it says they don't suffer from the bad firmware "freezing" problem that so many have experienced.
*snip*

Doublecheck your part/serial numbers. I do remember reading that you have to enter them in "just right" to get a correct interpretation--if you do it wrong it will just say there is no problem. So make sure your 0's and O's and 1s,Is, and l's are all correct and whatnot.

Antec Solo - are elastic bands bad for HDD circuit boards?

Antec Solo - are elastic bands bad for HDD circuit boards?

Re: Antec Solo - are elastic bands bad for HDD circuit board