Phipli
Well-known member
One is a 40MB disk in my SE from about 1990. Two are early 90s ProDrives. Not really paid attention.
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Replacement SPINNING drive for Quadra?
- Thread starter ChadVDR
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3lectr1cPPC
Well-known member
May they stay healthy then!
Phipli
Well-known member
I have a lot of SCSI Macs, I only have two SD card adapters, and both of those computers also have a spinning disk. No idea why, but I don't tend to lose many disks. Suspect they last better in cold houses.
But I don't use them for anything data critical and never would. I back up projects to a RAID NAS.
Again just like when we were discussing which capacitors to replace in the context of the age of the computer, the same applies to hard drives. You cannot paint all with the same brush, there are a lot of factors involved in how long a drive will last. At the end of the day, nothing will last forever. A lot of SD cards are going to be a lot less reliable than a Quantum drive could be, so its not accurate at all to single them out. I've had really really old drives work just fine, like original Connor hard drives in LCs, and I've left them there as they work. On the other hand, I've come across lots of dead Quantum drives, but sometimes working ones. This is why I mention that there are a lot of factors involved in hard drive longevity.
3lectr1cPPC
Well-known member
Agreed. Different conditions and different drives will yield different outcomes. I wouldn't ever get rid of a hard drive as well just because they are unreliable though, I've got that IBM DTLA running right now in my G4 Sawtooth, and it will be until I either put an SSD in it or until it dies. I'd actually love to have some old working Quantum drives.
And another thing we haven't mentioned much is that many of the Quantum drives can also be fixed from the bumper issue, so as long as it's a model without it put under the platters, and if you're willing to do the fix when the bumper goes, I'd have no problem with running one long-term. I also have to go a bit by the overwhelming amount of failures in the ProDrives and GoDrives to form my opinion on them though. I've seen plenty of people with ELS, LPS, and other drives that are still good so it isn't all of them, but they've got a shorter life left for sure, in general at least. There will always be exceptions though, and there's always a lot of variables at play.
With bumper fixing I've had a 1/3 success rate so far, so pretty low. Fixed a 40MB Conner 2.5" drive, it worked. Fixed a 20MB Conner 2.5" drive and it seeks now but had some other issue. And then there's the Daytona that I messed up, could have likely worked but I let the heads leave off the platters which is a big no-no. Still really wish I hadn't screwed that up.
And another thing we haven't mentioned much is that many of the Quantum drives can also be fixed from the bumper issue, so as long as it's a model without it put under the platters, and if you're willing to do the fix when the bumper goes, I'd have no problem with running one long-term. I also have to go a bit by the overwhelming amount of failures in the ProDrives and GoDrives to form my opinion on them though. I've seen plenty of people with ELS, LPS, and other drives that are still good so it isn't all of them, but they've got a shorter life left for sure, in general at least. There will always be exceptions though, and there's always a lot of variables at play.
With bumper fixing I've had a 1/3 success rate so far, so pretty low. Fixed a 40MB Conner 2.5" drive, it worked. Fixed a 20MB Conner 2.5" drive and it seeks now but had some other issue. And then there's the Daytona that I messed up, could have likely worked but I let the heads leave off the platters which is a big no-no. Still really wish I hadn't screwed that up.
3lectr1cPPC
Well-known member
Also here I meant joshc, not Byrd. Had a brainfart there...
As far as I can find, all of the ‘cuda’s are 7200rpm or more, no? I don’t think I would be happy with that considering how loud those fast spinners are.
I’d be interested to know more about these adapters. Hm. Lots of SCA drives come up from the 2000s.
A lot of mention of gooey rubber. I believe my hard drive had this issue but we resolved it.
In my first thread here, trying to revive my 610 after about 9-years, I went through all of the hardware a bit at a time to test and when I finally had the guts to plug in the hard drive, I was a bit concerned. It made a sound like a charging capacitor for a flash bulb. While the sound was high and loud, I would hear something that sounded like a straining motor give three strained tries at moving, then it would make the sound like it was winding back down. It would do this three or for times and then stop.
I took the drive out, dropped it on its edge from a height of an inch onto my desk top, plopped it back in and it booted up immediately. It’s been running without a single hiccup since December. I’ve done this before on such old drives and gotten all of them to work. Not sure how those held up over time since they weren’t mine to keep.
Has anybody else ever resorted to bumping a “dead” drive?
mikes-macs
Well-known member
Maybe you want one of these?
HDD SEAGATE ST423451N 23GB 5.4K SCSI 50-PIN 5.25https://www.ebay.com › ... › Internal Hard Disk Drives
HDD SEAGATE ST423451N 23GB 5.4K SCSI 50-PIN 5.25https://www.ebay.com › ... › Internal Hard Disk Drives
The arm is balanced to cancel gravity and bumps, so it's probably not the most effective method.
I do sell a minimally invasive fix for the bumper problem:
Phipli
Well-known member
They're really quiet disks. Quieter than most old disks. Quieter than computer fans.
What in the world would I ever do with 23GB?
Do you have personal experience with ‘cuda drives of the late 90s and early 00s? I’d like to know whether I can hear the arm clacking with every seek or if they’re just going to take ALL of my fun away. I really like the feedback I get. On startup it just starts rattling with urgency and every time I hit command+S in a program I like to hear the droning hum interrupted with a quick chatter that ends as if to say “task complete”.
Drive noises are not due to age and wear, that’s a very clear memory I have of my first computers. They all would hum and chatter and it felt as if you were really engaging with something. I’d hate to lose that and emulating the sound with some speaker just wouldn’t be the same like piping in engine noises from an electric car.
I have such clear memories of computer labs and the drone and chatter you’d get from 20+ PC’s grinding away atop the desk.
Phipli
Well-known member
Yeah, most of my computers use them. They're my quietest drives, some of the Quantum Atlases are quiet too. If you want clicky noises, the ultimate is a MiniScribe, but they're all really small (20 / 40... not sure if they even made 80s, but I suspect they did) and really unreliable.
My... best sounding clicky drive is a 2GB IBM drive I think, but it is starting to fail I suspect. Its never been 100% since it arrived in a 6100.
Truth be told... it would probably be cheaper to make a device that emulated the click and connect it to the LED connector on the hard disk so it went "click" every time the LED state changed and "click, click click" when it was on sustained.
s_pupp
Well-known member
My 7200rpm 50 pin Barracuda was one of the quietest drives I've owned. I wish I could remember its model number. That SCSI drive was out around the same time as the IDE Barracuda ATA IV, which are also quiet 7200rpm drives.
AeSix
Active member
Oooh! You mean an HDD Clicker emulator?
There's some pre-built ones as well I think...
3lectr1cPPC
Well-known member
They don’t work too well though. They only have one noise they can make, making an accurate simulation would require the device to mimic the head’s position on the disk which is more difficult.
Also, much of the drive's sound comes from the chassis it's installed in. A piezo beeper won't be able to reproduce this.
To me it’s like adding muscle car sounds to an electric car. In no way can the two be compared.
@Phipli I’m not a madman, the stepper sounds are a bit overboard and non apropos for the 90’s.
So far, everybody’s experience with Seagate 7200rpm drives is that they’re TOO quiet rather than too loud. I seem to remember the early days of insane drive speeds (SCSI) coming with insane drive noise but that likely has to do with the fact that they were intended for server application. I don’t know which is worse now!
I would be more than happy to adapt IDE into my Quadra but I think that involves a whole NUBUS or whatever card. It’s too bad, I have so many IDE drives laying around that make quite a racket.
Who wants a silent and fast dot matrix printer? Part of the enjoyment is the reassuring *smack* that resonates across the desk and even into the floor as it punches each symbol into the paper. The other half is waiting as the output emerges line by line.
If I wanted everything solid state, fast and silent I’d stick to my M2 Mac Mini and M2 MacBook Pro. Worse, I’d use a two button mouse
@Phipli I’m not a madman, the stepper sounds are a bit overboard and non apropos for the 90’s.
So far, everybody’s experience with Seagate 7200rpm drives is that they’re TOO quiet rather than too loud. I seem to remember the early days of insane drive speeds (SCSI) coming with insane drive noise but that likely has to do with the fact that they were intended for server application. I don’t know which is worse now!
I would be more than happy to adapt IDE into my Quadra but I think that involves a whole NUBUS or whatever card. It’s too bad, I have so many IDE drives laying around that make quite a racket.
Who wants a silent and fast dot matrix printer? Part of the enjoyment is the reassuring *smack* that resonates across the desk and even into the floor as it punches each symbol into the paper. The other half is waiting as the output emerges line by line.
If I wanted everything solid state, fast and silent I’d stick to my M2 Mac Mini and M2 MacBook Pro. Worse, I’d use a two button mouse
3lectr1cPPC
Well-known member
A lot of the 90s SCSI drives as well end up with loud bearings, at least in my experience, especially the Quantum drives. Very screechy if they're worn in a lot of cases. My IBM DORS-32160 2GB drive out of my PM 7100 as well has gotten loud bearings. Finding one that is the right level of noise can be a bit tricky sometimes...
mikes-macs
Well-known member
Archive videos in Cinepak for playing on vintage Macs.
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