With tearing apart drives over the years, 3.5" always used aluminum platters, while the 2.5" ones used glass. (With greater data density and higher speeds however, this may have changed)

[–] clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

In principle yes but I never managed to shatter or break a disc platter... But then I never had a sledgehammer

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That I'm not sure, I know the premise is that data is read and written magnetically, which would lead me to believe there is some kind of ferrous metal in there somewhere, but I couldn't tell you the actual composition of the platters.

[–] Micromot@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

A quick google search resulted that the actual platter is a non magnetic material like glass which is covered in a magnetic coating

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 1 points 6 months ago

Interesting, thanks for that. So perhaps folding the drives like that may indeed shatter the platters.