Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

[kaboom]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

I've said it before and I'll say it again-

The tin/lead alloy hype is overblown, as usual, to push an agenda. The two are bound together, and barring acids, solder's not gonna yield any elementary lead.

Take common table salt, for instance. Elemental sodium and chlorine can kill, yet the NaCl compound does not.

Why don't we ban water while we're at it? The hydrogen! Think of the children! Yet water doesn't just split itself and yield its elements...

Your windows and glassware don't revert back to lime, silica, and soda ash at the drop of a hat either.

Are those enough examples?


The whole "lead scare" is as ludicrous as those pushing it.

[kaboom]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

because old TVs and computers get buried in dry landfills that manage to keep even cheeseburgers fresh looking for years.

Right. Once we get to the landfill, there's all this talk of supposedly acidic leachate flowing over the boards dissolving the tin, freeing the lead.

First, the enviro-nazis have no idea what a lined landfill is; and second, just what is the pH of the leachate???

Even if you got 'anything good' from the trash heap, the leachate goes through a proper water treatment process before "just being dumped" into a river or other waterway.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

First, the enviro-nazis have no idea what a lined landfill is; and second, just what is the pH of the leachate???

Unlike the similarly ignorant Rush Limbaugh, at least those people keep us from reverting to the old days of uncontrolled polluting, i.e., China today.

[rhomanski]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

I have to say I like some eco-stuff. I used to live down the street from Electro-Voice in Buchanan Mich. They told us not to disturb the dirt because of the pollution in the ground. Don't go out into the yard. Not kid friendly.

[Shocker]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

Fair enough to care about the environment; I'm not saying I don't care, quite the opposite in fact. It's just those retarded short-sighted regulations like RoHS which I hate. Anyone who tries to defend RoHS will promptly go on my ignore list.

[999999999]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

Consider that the drive in question is from 2004.

My math skills aren't what they used to be but that works out to roughly 8 years old.

The drive has already outlived its expected lifespan and it is no longer reasonable to treat it as valuable or worthy of data backup. If the data is valuable the proof is in the expenditure on backup hardware to store it, then the frequency at which its backed up and where that offline backup is stored (off-site, preferably).

About lead free solder. I'm fine with it in any device not expected to last more than 5 years and against it for any 5+ year lifespan device. That means I'm fine with it on a HDD, keyboard, mouse, DVDRW drive, cellphone, but not the motherboard, memory, monitor, etc.

[Shocker]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think



Time to multi-quote myself:

I don't trust new hard drives

3 of my 4 newer Seagate drives have failed me. Not that it says all that much but I have heard that perpendicular recording is unstable.

old hard drives, which are usually more robust

So you can see what I'm talking about compare the weight of a 7200.7 with the weight of a current Seagate drive (accounting for the number of platters).

and last much longer.

All Seagate drives since the Barracuda ATA IV (two generations before the 7200.7) included fluid-dynamic bearings as standard equipment. Fluid-dynamic bearings don't wear out. And in case you're looking for proof, besides the mentioned ST380011A, which has almost 40,000 hours, I also have an ST340014A, which has less than 2,000 hours. NO audible noise difference at idle.

there's nothing else wrong with the drive.

Whether you trust HDDs or not, it's hard to disagree that it's just ridiculous that solder, of all things, would fail first.

I despise RoHS.

Regardless of the device in question.

As I stated, the problem is not that lead is/was used in solder, but that consumers are hopelessly wasteful.

PS. Anyone trying to defend RoHS will promptly go on my ignore list.

Well that's just silly.

As I saw somewhere once.. "If your data doesn't exist in at least three different locations, it doesn't exist"

A lot less silly than RoHS!!!!!

[999999999]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

All Seagate drives since the Barracuda ATA IV (two generations before the 7200.7) included fluid-dynamic bearings as standard equipment. Fluid-dynamic bearings don't wear out. And in case you're looking for proof, besides the mentioned ST380011A, which has almost 40,000 hours, I also have an ST340014A, which has less than 2,000 hours. NO audible noise difference at idle.

No audible noise difference (ignoring the infinitely small sample size of 1 drive) is not proof that fluid bearings don't wear out. Further, under 40K hours is less than 5 years of continuous service.

At that point I would be satisfied with the lifespan of the drive but on the other hand I do expect products to last longer than the warranty period with some drives having 5 year warranty (at least back then more of them did). Even so, plenty of modern drives fail from mechanical issues whether it be the motor bearing or the actuator bearing.

The problem when a fluid bearing fails is you may not have that gradual increase in noise to warn you, it'll just start slapping the actuator around when the drive is spun up from an off state.

I think ROHS is a great idea but that they rushed it before they had a stable solder formulation to use with all the virtues of lead based solder.

[Agent24]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

A lot less silly than RoHS!!!!!

Say what you want about RoHS, but no matter what type of data storage you have, you have to have at least 3 copies (original, on-site backup and off-site backup) if you want it to be safe.

The more the better.

[Wester547]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

No audible noise difference (ignoring the infinitely small sample size of 1 drive) is not proof that fluid bearings don't wear out. Further, under 40K hours is less than 5 years of continuous service.

Theoretically speaking, all hardware fails eventually, what matters is how soon it fails. Fluid dynamic bearings is an interesting topic as far as fan and hard drive bearings go: I may be wrong but I have heard that fluid dynamic bearing fans do wear out if they're not constantly at a high RPM due to the way it works with friction, so not only are they expensive, they may potentially eschew more power and be rather loud. Maybe the same applies to hard drives? I know bearings in hard drives and fans are different beasts but I imagine that there haven't been (if I'm not mistaken) fluid dynamic bearing bearings in hard drives below 5400RPM for a reason... of course, given that there have been very quiet 7200RPM fluid dynamic bearing drives, maybe the idea that they'd be loud is silly (but I imagine a fluid dynamic bearing fan at 7200RPM would be rather loud). I would still imagine that at high speeds, fluid dynamic bearings would last longer than ball bearings in hard drives and not sound "worse for wear" over the duration of time.

Agent24 has a point about hard drives, however - RoHS does not affect their reliability all that much (save by tin whiskers on the PCB having the capacity to cause short circuits as stated before me) unless we're talking potentially defective PCBs to begin with. Thermal expansion is already horrible for hard drives, RoHS or not, for a myriad of reasons, and further, hard drives are prone to failure for a myriad of reasons, RoHS or not. RoHS lowers the reliability of other devices significantly but hard drives were already very fragile and complex to begin with, so much so that failure clearly cannot be predicted with them. Only a decent backup is assurance.

I'm not saying I support RoHS though: on the contrary, I think it may limit the life of computers tremendously (unless they're ran 24/7 in which cases heat/cold cycles would be limited to none). I too do no find RoHS necessary, but neither did I ever find packages like BGA, CSP, or/and QFN necessary, nothing of which takes flex and heat/cold cycles well.

[Agent24]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

neither did I ever find packages like BGA, CSP, or/and QFN necessary, nothing of which takes flex and heat/cold cycles well.

With high clock speeds I think they are necessary, to keep good signal integrity. The problem is, as you say, they are not very tolerant of thermal expansion, and with high speeds comes high heat, so it's worse.

[Wester547]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

With high clock speeds I think they are necessary, to keep good signal integrity. The problem is, as you say, they are not very tolerant of thermal expansion, and with high speeds comes high heat, so it's worse.

Better packages like QFP and DIP don't have good signal integrity at equally high clock speeds? Or rather, there are no equivalent alternatives in that regard? ^^;

[Shocker]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

I know bearings in hard drives and fans are different beasts but I imagine that there haven't been (if I'm not mistaken) fluid dynamic bearing bearings in hard drives below 5400RPM for a reason...

That's only because 4500RPM drives were obsolete by the time they introduced fluid-dynamic bearings. Also Hitachi drives have a special "low-RPM mode" where the heads are unloaded and the spindle is reduced to 4500RPM.

(but I imagine a fluid dynamic bearing fan at 7200RPM would be rather loud).

But then again, what fan wouldn't be loud at such a high speed??? In fans it's the airflow, not the bearings, that make most of the noise.

I would still imagine that at high speeds, fluid dynamic bearings would last longer than ball bearings in hard drives and not sound "worse for wear" over the duration of time.

True. Also they have to use fluid-dynamic bearings in modern hard drives, as ball bearings would produce too much non-repeatable run-out. Also ball bearings are prone to shock damage; with FDB, at least when powered off, you'll destroy the heads first.

Leaving it on 24/7 won't stop the whiskers, by the way.

At least they weren't stupid enough to also use the lead-free solder inside the 7200.7s.

Thermal expansion is already horrible for hard drives, RoHS or not, for a myriad of reasons, and further, hard drives are prone to failure for a myriad of reasons, RoHS or not. RoHS lowers the reliability of other devices significantly but hard drives were already very fragile and complex to begin with, so much so that failure clearly cannot be predicted with them. Only a decent backup is assurance.

I don't know about you but the drive involved reached 67°C in the past. And sure, the airgap keeping the head floating may sound unstable. But none of the recent Seagate failures I mentioned above were actually head crashes. I blame them on (A) perpendicular recording and (B) the tumble Seagate took.

Yep...it sounds unstable, but you can make it stable if you try...

No-one will be able to do anything to lighten my opinion on RoHS. At least you're not trying to defend RoHS.

[Wester547]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

I don't know about you but the drive involved reached 67°C in the past. And sure, the airgap keeping the head floating may sound unstable. But none of the recent Seagate failures I mentioned above were actually head crashes. I blame them on (A) perpendicular recording and (B) the tumble Seagate took.

Yep...it sounds unstable, but you can make it stable if you try...

No-one will be able to do anything to lighten my opinion on RoHS. At least you're not trying to defend RoHS.

Recent Seagate failures are largely due to A) firmware problems and B) Seagate designing their drives to fail. Yes they do. Western Digital do the same thing. That's why they put ST smooth chips on all their drives. They know what they're doing. They intentionally make the drives have in-built failure mechanisms by default so you'll buy more. Perpendicular recording technology is also an issue, and much more of a threat than lead-free solder to hard drives.

And if I remember you said you used that drive mostly 24/7. :P 67C in a 24/7 condition is different than 67C in a 10-12/7 condition. One time at 67C may not kill a drive even in thermal cycling conditions. Also, I don't think there's such a thing as "low RPM" on a hard drive. That's usually marketing talk. Western Digital tried to pull the same thing off with "Intellispeed" when their drives were just 5400RPM (the greens). Unloading heads doesn't, if I'm mot mistaken (head parking), reduce the speed at which the drive is spinning (I don't think that's feasible by technical definition without consuming more power and having ill-begotten consequences), it just puts the drive in another state of activity.

[severach]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

Such packages are needed where board space is at an ultra premium, such as cell phones. BGA also allows for very high pin counts. 1000 pins in anything other than BGA requires a chip the size of a coffee saucer.

What I don't like is when they choose a low frequency low pin count BGA chip to save board space--board space they don't even use. BGA just because!

By RoHS I take it we mean RoHS lead restrictions that affect products containing solder. I don't see any other chemicals on the RoHS list worth complaining about.

[Shocker]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

And if I remember you said you used that drive mostly 24/7. :P 67C in a 24/7 condition is different than 67C in a 10-12/7 condition. One time at 67C may not kill a drive even in thermal cycling conditions.

No, I didn't use it 24/7, just saying that using it 24/7 won't prevent whisker growth. If I ran it 24/7 it would have more than 70,000 hours now.

Also, I don't think there's such a thing as "low RPM" on a hard drive. That's usually marketing talk. Western Digital tried to pull the same thing off with "Intellispeed" when their drives were just 5400RPM (the greens). Unloading heads doesn't, if I'm mot mistaken (head parking), reduce the speed at which the drive is spinning (I don't think that's feasible by technical definition without consuming more power and having ill-begotten consequences), it just puts the drive in another state of activity.

I know WD's marketing was BS. That's not what I'm talking about. Instead the Hitachi drives park the heads and then reduce the speed. When the drive is accessed again they spin back up, then load the heads back onto the platters.

What I don't like is when they choose a low frequency low pin count BGA chip to save board space--board space they don't even use. BGA just because!

Yep, that's super stupid. Unless BGA is all they can get...

[Wester547]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

No, I didn't use it 24/7, just saying that using it 24/7 won't prevent whisker growth. If I ran it 24/7 it would have more than 70,000 hours now.

There was never a period where you ran the drive 24/7?

I know WD's marketing was BS. That's not what I'm talking about. Instead the Hitachi drives park the heads and then reduce the speed. When the drive is accessed again they spin back up, then load the heads back onto the platters.

Then you mean a complete spin-up and spin-down, but I'd rather not have that mode. :P

[Shocker]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

There was never a period where you ran the drive 24/7?

It's very random. Sometimes 24/7, sometimes barely at all. Currently not at all.

Then you mean a complete spin-up and spin-down, but I'd rather not have that mode. :P

It does reduce the time required for it to get ready again.

[Agent24]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

Better packages like QFP and DIP don't have good signal integrity at equally high clock speeds? Or rather, there are no equivalent alternatives in that regard? ^^;

I don't know. BGA gives very high pin count in small package with shorter lead length which might be necessary for the high speed operation. That's my guess.

It's probably more to do with packaging more pins in less space and thus having easier PCB routing than speed and signal integrity, but I'm not a graphics card \ motherboard \BGA design engineer!

[Wester547]

Re: Lead-free solder and tin whiskers: Older than you think

Also ball bearings are prone to shock damage; with FDB, at least when powered off, you'll destroy the heads first.

They say the same thing about ball bearing fans... sleeve bearing fans have better shock-resistance yet dual ball bearing fans last much longer? I have a hard time believing that. Fans are also lead-free now adays, though it implores the question, does thermal cycling pose great threat to the lubricant of sleeve bearing fans...