HARD DISC DRIVE CRASHES
Further occurrences of hard disc drive crashes have been reported this year incurring large costs for the end users/ insurers.
The sound pressure levels of high-pressure gas suppression systems discharging can cause disc drives in the computer cabinets to crash. This is due to the sound levels that can be caused by these gas suppressant discharges. Sound levels of 110 db and above are achieved by high pressure systems discharging.
Intensive research has been carried out in Europe and America on this very subject to conclusively prove that it is the sound levels that cause the problems not pressure levels as some believe.
This is not specific to any given agent but can be caused by any of the agents producing high discharge pressure at the gas nozzles causing these high sound levels.
The result is that most manufacturers have now produced silencer nozzles.
SERVICE PROVIDERS TAKE NOTE:
These problems are not caused by changes to gas suppression systems but by the increasing technology of hard disc drives.
It is your duty as a service provider / service company to warn your clients of the danger of gas discharges, false or otherwise, damaging their hard drives as they may be blissfully unaware of such dangers. You should recommend changing the existing nozzles with silencer nozzles on all their suppression systems of 200 or 300 bar.
You, as a service provider must be informed and keep your clients abreast of dangers that may occur and changes in technology. You will be blamed if the client has to spend out hundreds of thousands of Rands!
Make sure they are not using solid state drives as these will be unaffected by noise.
