Chassis and hard drive

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9939857-B1
Application number	US-201715463658-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Mar 20, 2017
Priority date	Mar 20, 2017
Publication date	Apr 10, 2018
Grant date	Apr 10, 2018

Abstract

Examples include a system comprising chassis and hard drive. In some examples, the hard drive has a set of positioning members and the chassis includes a hard drive slot having a guide rail unit to guide the hard drive into the hard drive slot via a positioning member of the set of positioning members on the hard drive. The chassis also includes a latch assembly connected to the hard drive slot to retain and extract the hard drive.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A chassis comprising:
a hard drive slot; and
a latch assembly connected to the hard drive slot to retain and extract a hard drive, the latch assembly including:
a rotatable arm,
a pin shaft connected to the rotatable arm,
a pin member to engage with the pin shaft and provide a rotation axis around which the latch assembly rotates,
a positioning mechanism, to engage with a first positioning member of a set of positioning members on the hard drive to retain and extract the hard drive, including:
the first lip that contacts the first positioning member when the hard drive is being inserted into the hard drive slot, and
the second lip that contacts the first positioning member when the hard drive is being extracted from the hard drive slot, and

a spring member to engage with the hard drive slot, the spring member to shift from a rest position to an engaged position based on the rotatable arm.

2. The chassis of claim 1 , wherein the hard drive slot further comprises:
a guide rail unit to guide another set of positioning members on the hard drive.

3. The chassis of claim 2 , wherein a lateral cross-section of the guide rail unit is U-shaped.

4. The chassis of claim 1 , wherein the rotatable arm has a slot to minimize rotation of the rotatable arm.

5. The chassis of claim 4 , wherein the rotatable arm appears to be a push button to a user.

6. The chassis of claim 1 , wherein the spring member is a torsion spring including:
a pair of connected coils around the pin shaft of the latch assembly; and
a pair of spring legs in contact with the hard drive slot.

7. The chassis of claim 1 , wherein the positioning mechanism includes:
a depression to retain the hard drive via the first positioning member; and
a front lip and a rear lip that form the depression,
wherein the front lip contacts the first positioning member during insertion of the hard drive, rotating the rotatable arm downward, and
wherein the rear lip exerts a force on the first positioning member during extraction of the hard drive when the spring member is shifted from a rest position to the engaged position.

8. The chassis of claim 1 , wherein the hard drive slot is one of a set of hard drive slots and the latch assembly is one of a set of latch assemblies, such that each latch assembly of the set of latch assemblies is connected to a different hard drive slot of the set of hard drive slots.

9. The chassis of claim 8 , wherein the pin member engages with each pin shaft of the set of latch assemblies.

10. The chassis of claim 1 , wherein the hard drive is a solid state drive with an attachment sized to the hard drive slot and wherein the set of positioning members are located on the attachment.

11. A system comprising:
a hard drive having a first set of positioning members and a second set of positioning members, wherein the first set of positioning members are located on a first side of the hard drive and the second set of positioning members are located on a second side of the hard drive; and
a chassis including:
a hard drive slot having a guide rail unit to guide the hard drive into the hard drive slot via a first positioning member of the set of positioning members on the hard drive, and
a latch assembly connected to the hard drive slot to retain and extract the hard drive and including:
a first lip that contacts a first positioning member of the second set of positioning members when the hard drive is being guided into the hard drive slot; and
a second lip that contacts the first positioning member of the second set of positioning members when the hard drive is being extracted from the hard drive slot.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the latch assembly further comprises:
a rotatable arm;
a pin shaft connected to the rotatable arm;
a pin member to engage with the pin shaft and provide a rotation axis around which the latch assembly rotates;
a positioning mechanism to engage with another positioning member of the set of positioning members on the hard drive to retain and extract the hard drive; and
a spring member to engage with the hard drive slot, the spring member to shift from a rest position to an engaged position based on the rotatable arm.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the spring member is a torsion spring including:
a pair of connected coils around the pin shaft of the latch assembly; and
a pair of spring legs in contact with the hard drive slot.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein the positioning mechanism includes:
a depression to retain the hard drive via the positioning member; and
a front lip and a rear lip that form the depression,
wherein the front lip contacts the positioning member during insertion of the hard drive, rotating the rotatable arm downward, and
wherein the rear lip exerts a force on the positioning member during extraction of the hard drive when the spring member is shifted from a rest position to the engaged position.

15. The system of claim 11 , wherein the rotatable arm appears to be a push button to a user and has a slot to minimize rotation of the rotatable arm.

16. The system of claim 11 , wherein the hard drive slot is part of a set of hard drive slots and the latch assembly is part of a set of latch assemblies, such that each latch assembly of the set of latch assemblies is connected to a different hard drive slot of the set of hard drive slots.

17. The system of claim 11 , wherein the hard drive is a solid state drive with an attachment sized to the hard drive slot and wherein the set of positioning members are located on the attachment.

18. A hard drive comprising:
a set of positioning members including a first positioning member and a second positioning member and including:
a first pair of positioning members on a first lateral face of the hard drive, and
a second pair of positioning members on a second lateral face of the hard drive,

wherein the first positioning member of the set of positioning members engages with a positioning mechanism of a latch assembly connected to a hard drive slot of a chassis to retain the hard drive within the hard drive slot,
wherein the positioning mechanism includes:
a first lip that contacts the first positioning member when the hard drive is being inserted, and
a second lip that contacts the first positioning member when the hard drive is being extracted,

wherein another set of positioning members engages with a guide rail unit of the hard drive slot to guide the hard drive into the hard drive slot, and
wherein a second positioning member of the set of positioning members engages with another positioning mechanism.

19. The hard drive of claim 18 , wherein a front lip of the positioning mechanism contacts the positioning member during insertion of the hard drive, rotating a rotatable arm of the latch assembly downward, and wherein a rear lip of the positioning mechanism exerts a force on the positioning member during extraction of the hard drive to eject the hard drive from the hard drive slot.

20. The hard drive of claim 18 , further comprising:
a solid state drive with an attachment, wherein the attachment is sized to the hard drive slot of the chassis and wherein the set of positioning members are located on the attachment.

Assignees

• Hewlett Packard Entpr Dev Lp

Inventors

• Pham Kenny Huy
• Tsai Ronald Pinche
• Sauer Keith A
• Smith Kelly K

Classifications

• G06F1/187 Primary

  Mounting of fixed or removable disk drives · CPC title

• G11B33/022

  Cases · CPC title

• G11B33/128

  of the plurality of recording/reproducing devices, e.g. disk drives, onto a chassis · CPC title

• G11B33/124

  of the single recording/reproducing device, e.g. disk drive, onto a chassis · CPC title

• G06F1/181 Primary

  Enclosures (for portable computers G06F1/1613) · CPC title