Western Digital Technologies, Inc.

Jeff Wilke

Toshiki Hirano

Shaomin Xiong

Lidu Huang

Satoshi Yamamoto

Darya Amin-Shahidi

Haoyu Wu

Hussam Zebian

Todd McNally

Bart Carter

Dave Niss

Timothy Skarzynski

Carson Belknap

A flexible fastener captivator includes a flange comprising an orifice configured to enable a fastener to pass through and an adhesive, and a flexible cap coupled with the flange and configured to provide operational access to a fastener encapsulated within the cap, where the cap includes a retaining structure configured to hold a separate fastener within the cap. The retaining structure may be configured as a plurality of flexible ledges extending from an inner surface of the cap and having a planar surface configured to support a head of a separate fastener, such as a standard off-the-shelf screw or bolt. Such a captivator can be dimensioned commensurate with the fastener type and size for which its use is intended, and/or captivator strips may be constructed in Rack Units of length.

Flexible fastener captivator

An adhesive layered backflow preventer laminate, for use in impeding airflow from flowing in a backflow direction through the backflow preventer and a corresponding cooling fan, includes a thin front support layer adhered to a thin backflow flap layer, having a plurality of backflow flaps, which is adhered to a thin rear support layer. Each of the structural layers is adhered to the adjacent structural layer using a respective double-sided adhesive layer, by way of a manufacturing process that avoids the use of costly injection molded parts and machined plastic parts and metal components such as springs and hinges.

Adhesive layered backflow preventer

A data storage system may include multiple data storage devices, such as solid-state drives, an enclosure housing the devices, and a thermal bridge positioned in a gap between and in contact with each of the enclosure and a device, where the enclosure is cooler than the device. Thus, heat is conducted away from a hot spot of the device and to the enclosure. The thermal bridge may be flexible enough to bridge different sized gaps, while stiff enough to generate contact forces applied to the enclosure and the device. For example, the thermal bridge may be constructed primarily of copper and configured to function like a compression spring.

Hot spot cooling for data storage system

A data storage system may include multiple data storage devices, such as hard disk drives, a cooling fan, and a sound balancer structure between the fan and the drives. The sound balancer is intentionally positioned where it substantially balances, about the center of rotation of and along at least one axis of a fan-facing storage device, the sound pressure from the fan that impinges upon the fan-facing face of the storage device. This redistribution of the sound pressure suppresses sound pressure-induced torque upon and therefore rotational vibration of the storage device, which in turn enhances the track following capability of the storage device.

Reducing vibration of data storage device in a data storage system

Provided herein are systems and apparatus for reducing vibration interaction between hard drives. In one implementation, a flexible mount electrical connection comprises a mating connector configured to physically couple with a hard drive connector and a plurality of electrical pins having a connector portion positioned within the mating connector configured to electrically couple with hard drive connector pins positioned within the hard drive connector. Each electrical pin has an extended portion extending away from the mating connector. The extended portion has an attachment portion configured to electrically couple the respective electrical pin to a printed circuit board, and the extended portion has a shape formed therein configured to reduce transmission of vibrations in the connector portion along each axis of a three-dimensional space to the attachment portion.

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Palmer Lake, CO, United States of America

Jeff Wilke