An out-of-the-box Maxtor drive. Note the absence of a power switch. Bad Maxtor, bad!
To me, there is nothing more annoying than the din was conceived and completed in 30 minutes of a spinning hard drive and a whirring fan, 24 hours and finally gives me peace and quiet when I’m a day, 7 days a week. I bought my 80GB Maxtor not using the drive.
Personal Storage 1394 drive with a plan for it to act This hack demonstrates some key basic
as an offline file server and backup depository. elements of hardware hacking and serves an
To my surprise, there was no power switch on immediate, practical purpose. Add an easily
the unit. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that any accessible power switch to the front of the
product that isn’t required to be on all the time external drive to enable and disable the drive
should provide some method for the user to turn without having to struggle with disconnecting
it on and off. Maxtor’s design decision didn’t make the main power supply and risk dropping the
sense to me, so it was time to take matters into my power supply cable behind your desk.
own hands.
Since I only use the drive periodically, it
doesn’t need to be on all the time. The hack
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