Right here’s a historical past lesson for our youthful readers: for a number of many years, arduous disk drives (HDDs) have been well-liked dwelling pc storage gadgets. Not like trendy solid-state drives (SSDs), these HDDs had inside shifting components. Most noticeably, that they had spinning magnetic platters and a studying head mounted on an arm. As that arm moved forwards and backwards throughout the platter, it might make a clicking noise. We realized to affiliate that clicking with our pc accessing knowledge and a few individuals miss the sound. To get it again, Matthias Werner developed the HDD Clicker v0.2 to be used with trendy SSDs.
The HDD Clicker v0.2 solely has one objective and that’s to simulate the click sound of typical HDDs. This product clearly has a really area of interest market, however it’s too charming for us to not cowl. It ought to work with most trendy computer systems, in addition to virtually each classic pc that got here with an HDD. In case you have such a classic pc however changed the HDD with an SSD, that is the proper product for you. You’ll be capable to use that SSD, however will nonetheless hear the arduous drive clicking so that you simply get the total retrocomputing expertise.
This small gadget works by monitoring the HDD entry LED. These LEDs are actually a lot much less widespread, however they was ubiquitous. Their objective was to point when the pc was writing knowledge to the HDD or studying knowledge from it. Even if you happen to’re utilizing an SSD, that LED ought to nonetheless flash as the pc reads or writes. The HDD Clicker v0.2 merely produces a clicking sound via a small buzzer every time present flows via the HDD entry LED wires. From what we will hear within the demonstration video, it sounds identical to an actual HDD.
This can be a very small gadget that ought to slot in any PC case and is suitable with each pc that has an HDD entry LED (although you could must snip wires, relying on their connector kind). It must be accessible for buy quickly via the Serdashop on-line retailer.
