20,000 RPM disks were trialed but I don’t know if they ever saw production. Part of the problem is keeping the platters together at those speeds; and about that time SSDs took over.
I find it hard to believe spinning an electric motor and a relatively light and small disc that fast is much of a challenge to keep together, especially in such a coddled environment.
Even back in the early 90s my RC10 had a 38k rpm "modified" motor; the Motown Missile. That thing lived through hell...
Hard drives have slightly higher longevity requirements.
When the engines did run closer to 20,000 they were indeed rebuilt much more often. I am not well versed in F1 regulation history but Wikipedia claims that before 2005 engines were not required to last for two race weekends[1], meaning you could rebuild the engine between each race weekend if you wanted to. At that time there was no RPM limit[2] for the engines and the iconic Ferrari F2004 supposedly maxed out at 19,000 RPM[3].
So maybe the comment you are replying to is referring to pre-2005 F1 engines :) I have no idea myself if a modern F1 engine could run at 20,000 and still be as durable as the current engines or if running at such high RPM inherently means bad durability.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Formula_One_World_Champio...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_engines#Engine_spe...
https://jalopnik.com/how-formula-ones-amazing-new-hybrid-tur...
In the past the rules were different.
Even if what you said were true, so what?
We're talking about a tiny spinning disc on a brushless hub motor. There's basically a single moving part, maybe a few more if riding on ball bearings.
Do you have any understanding of what is going on inside a many-cylinder internal combustion piston engine spinning at 20k rpm? We can view the flywheel as the hard disk platter equivalent, the real madness is at the reciprocating mass being flung back and forth at the same rate.
Edit: Here's another useful reference point to help put RPM numbers into perspective: a turbocharger's rotating assembly spins on the order of 200-300k RPM without flying apart. A minute is a pretty long time.
This precision structure has to be maintained at 10k RPM. Can it be maintained at 20k RPM? Maybe not so easily. Let's not undersell the technology.
"Part of the problem is keeping the platters together at those speeds"
I'm not speaking to seeking or precision at all, only pointing out there's not really any challenge in keeping the platters together at these speeds.
https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/o4k0xa/up_to_2...
CBR250rr to 20, and those were actually street legal, and there are still a lot of them on the roads.