What are hard disk platters made of? At first I thought it was aluminum alloy or some other light weight material. And to be honest I never gave it much thought – until today.
When we take a hard drive out of service at work, we destroy the disk. Usually we bust out the TORX screwdriver (size T8 and or T10) and remove the outer case. Then we remove the circuit board, the magnets for the actuator arm, and then the actuator arm. Finally you are left with a stack of platters which you can leave in the bottom of the case or remove them.
So this afternoon I was on the phone with my wife and playing with the platters I removed from a drive about a week ago. I dropped on the floor and to my astonishment it shattered! So after cleaning up my mess I was curious and needed to know. Click the link from Wikipedia and scroll down to Manufacture.