• Hello MLAers! We've re-enabled auto-approval for accounts. If you are still waiting on account approval, please check this thread for more information.

40 MB disks on eBay

This IS cool.  Thanks.  So, I’m not a hard drive expert, I appreciate that this seller opened one up to show the condition of the rubber bump stop ... is that the primary component that causes these to age into disrepair?  In other words, do these sold spinning HDs start to have issues because of USE, or just because of AGE?  Would we generally expect a NOS HD to still have many years of life ahead, as opposed to (say) a NOS SE/30, which would need recapping and floppy drive lubing and god help us if there was a a battery in there?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
There are two main issues that we have seen on the quantum drives installed in our Macs, 1) board failures and 2) the gooey rubber stop.  IMO, the rubber stop shown in the ad could not have been gooey and still looked that good after removal.  That leaves just possible board failures and I am not sure what causes that, or if storage for 30+ years would prevent that.  Since the seller is willing to test them before shipping them to you, it seems reasonable to expect somewhat less than the 'normal' HD MTBF, which for original 40 MB Quantum Pro drives was 50000 hrs. (they originally came with a 24 month warranty, which is long expired) Quantum PRODRIVE SE 40 specs

...or maybe the seller has access to a time machine (I've been watching quite a few Outer Limits episodes lately) and they could be good for quite a few more years ;-)

 
If I had the money to spare, I'd totally get a few of these!

Solid state is good, but on a vintage computer, I want to hear those hard drives sounds!

c

 
...and yes I bought this in spite of the cost. Back four years ago when I bought these, other SCSI solutions were more expensive than they are now and definitely harder to work with, so in the scheme of things it seemed like a better deal than it would be now. A part of me also wanted to test out what would happen to these. At the time, I didn't have an opportunity to put it in the put it in a Mac, but the other day, I finally had my Mac II set up, needed a drive and this seemed like the perfect fit, so I formatted it, loaded it with 6.0.8 and put some additional items on it.

It died on the third reboot.

I took it apart and the rubber bumps had just enough structure to keep it together for a few more hits, but it had reached the point of being 'grabby' on the outside. When I probed the bumper further in, it held the goo inside. This drive is done. Well, the

There are so many times that I see an old thread like this and I wonder, 'Hmmm, did anyone buy those? Did they work out (or not?)' In this case I can let everyone know that from my small sample size, that maybe, if I had used them right away, I might have gotten more time out of them, but basically, a 30 year old hard drive has 30 year old parts that will not last much longer.
 
at this point i yoink any spinning disk i find in an old mac. i don't feel the need to mess around with ancient spinning rust.
 
at this point i yoink any spinning disk i find in an old mac. i don't feel the need to mess around with ancient spinning rust.
I think its great that we now have the option to do so, if we wish - I have over half a dozen Macs with replacement drives and at least five more 'on deck' to be completed as time permits. But I also have plenty more that keep on chugging away with spinning disks, since some are more durable than others.
 
I think that having real spinning drives is not a bad thing. it just depends which drives. case in point, the OP mentioned NOS Quantum drives - those are the least reliable drives of the era. Granted, it was 4y ago but… Why no Seagate Medalists? Or the IBM DCHS? Or the Quantum's XP3xxxx? These are vsry reliable drives. Instead, we find only IBM DeathStars, Prodrives, Fujitsus, maxtors…. Argh
 
Back
Top