Long Term Reliability of Conner 40MB Drives (Mac Classic)

[Scott Baret]

As I prepare to begin a school year with a gaggle of older Macs in use (currently have two Classics, two SEs, and a IIci set up in a room to run some old-yet-standards-meeting software), I figure I'll toss this out here, as my IIci's 80MB drive is getting flaky.

How do your experiences with Conner 40MB drives stack up against Quantums and the other common stock Apple drives?

I'm about to pop a Conner in the IIci, as I've had good luck with most of my Conners thus far (only one has ever gone on me). Out of curiosity, how do they fare over time in terms of failure rate?

I know the inevitable will happen with all drives down the line, as these drives aren't getting any younger, but I figured I'd toss this out just because my curiosity is getting the better of me.

 

[nvdeynde]

The 40MB Conner CP3045A drives are quite reliable, I don't know if this counts for larger drives.

The best vintage SCSI drives are definately IBM's of 80MB or 160MB.

As for the Quantum Prodrive series: well these suffer from stiction so the heads get stuck in the parked position. This can be solved by opening the drive and removing the plastic spring that keeps the heads in the parked position.

 

[uniserver]

I was wondering if you could disable the eject with the scsi internal zip and just install inside like a 100 mb hard drive, ?

 

[Dog Cow]

I've got two 40 MB Conner drives, and they are still working just fine.

 

[CelGen]

I have heard rumors that conner drives are vulnerable to the rubber seal liquifying with time and compromising the HDA integrity but have not seen it happen yet on a drive in a mac.

 

[nvdeynde]

I have heard rumors that conner drives are vulnerable to the rubber seal liquifying with time and compromising the HDA integrity but have not seen it happen yet on a drive in a mac

The Conner drive used in the Mac portables was notorious for this... I haven't seen it in the Connor desktop models yet.

Some Quantums with higher capacity than 80MB have rubber liquifying inside the drive: there's a rubber stop washer that prevents the heads going off the platters.

Well these become sticky and liquify so the heads get stuck. I've seen a few 270MB and 540MB with this problem and haven't been able to repair them.

 

[techknight]

What about replacing that washer on a working drive as preventative maintenance? Dont wait until it fails as it will most definitely ruin the head stack assembly.

 

[nvdeynde]

I haven't been able to find an exact replacement for the washer ( O-ring ) and opening hard drives and taking the heads assembly aparts is always risky, not something you want to do on a working drive.

 

[techknight]

No, but if its going to do it anyway, why not?

 

[CelGen]

The best I can say is go around the outside seal and cover it tightly with electrical tape. Just hope that Connors don't have a depression inside where the rubber can eventually pool and gum up the spindle.