External USB2.0 HDD disconnect

[James Knott]

Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2004 at 06:37:16PM -0500, James Knott wrote:
> 
>>Those driver trays were around for years, before USB.  At one time it 
>>was the only practical way to change drives in a PC.
> 
> 
> Of course people running dos didn't mind rebooting as much I guess.
> 
> 
>>Anyone here remember disk pack drives?  ;-)
> 
> 
> Those 30MB motor eject things?  Or do you mean the old 10 or 12" disk
> platters you inserted in a large head/motor mechanism and hoped not to
> head crash?  I am not THAT old. :)  I have seen them and heard of them
> though.

As I recall, they had 14" platters, arranged in a stack, under a plastic 
cover.  You'd place the pack in the drive and crank down the handle. 
That would screw the pack to the drive and release the cover, so you 
could then close the drive and spin up the pack.  Those drives had a 
mount switch, which you use to spin or stop the drive.

I worked on them and heard them crash!!!  You also didn't want your hand 
anywhere near the heads, if the power died.

I got out of that line of work about 14 years ago.

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