What is the current view on these hard drives?

[Johnnya101]

Was looking for a certain floppy disk today in storage. Didn't find it... But I DID find my long lost stash of scsi hard drives!

What are the current thoughts/views on these? I'm looking for something that would require little to no maintenance for my SE/30. Any of them not have the awful sticky rubber goo problems? Or at least would be easy to fix? Best reliability? Etc.

Seagate ST1480N

Maxtor (the black brick) LXT340SY

Quantum ProDrive LPS 230

 

[cruff]

I've had good luck with my old SCSI HDDs.  I've not heard of "the awful sticky rubber goo problem", so I don't know to what you are referring.  Power them up and see if they respond.

 

[Johnnya101]

The rubber bumpers in some of them turn into goo and then makes a mess.

 

[LaPorta]

The Connor in my Mac Portable had the rubber turned into this mess. SCSI2SD to the rescue!

 

[Franklinstein]

Was looking for a certain floppy disk today in storage. Didn't find it... But I DID find my long lost stash of scsi hard drives!

What are the current thoughts/views on these? I'm looking for something that would require little to no maintenance for my SE/30. Any of them not have the awful sticky rubber goo problems? Or at least would be easy to fix? Best reliability? Etc.

Seagate ST1480N

Maxtor (the black brick) LXT340SY

Quantum ProDrive LPS 230

The Seagate is, judging by the model number, most likely a half-height 3.5" drive of about 480MB with a narrow SCSI interface. It's likely to be the fastest, most reliable, and most spacious of the drives you have here, but it may be too tall to fit comfortably in the SE/30. Also it will also be the most power-hungry, so you had better make sure your power supply is in good shape.

The Maxtor may or may not be worth anything; I tend to avoid them because they're bad more often than not. If I do use them I put them in machines where they're easy to remove such as LCs or Mac IIs.

The Quantum ProDrive LPS is one of the drives with the sticky rubber problem, though depending on how it was stored yours may not yet be afflicted. I would avoid using it unless you first replace the rubber (this model is easy: the bumpers are both on the magnet assembly). Otherwise these drives tend to be very reliable, though they're usually kinda slow. A favorite of mine for duty in LCs or Performas.

The above assumes all of the drives have had similar use previously; otherwise it goes out the window if one drive has 200k hours on it while the others have 200 hours, or one was stored in a cool, dry location and the others stored in a damp crawl space somewhere.

 

[Johnnya101]

No idea on how they were stored. Thanks for the info.

 

[ScutBoy]

The Seagate is, judging by the model number, most likely a half-height 3.5" drive of about 480MB with a narrow SCSI interface. It's likely to be the fastest, most reliable, and most spacious of the drives you have here, but it may be too tall to fit comfortably in the SE/30. Also it will also be the most power-hungry, so you had better make sure your power supply is in good shape.

It will also likely be the loudest Most of my Seagates from this era scream like banshees - but they still run!

 

[Franklinstein]

No idea on how they were stored. Thanks for the info.

No problem. Sadly these things are pre-SMART so there's no way to get an accurate gauge of their past and present performance parameters. 

It will also likely be the loudest Most of my Seagates from this era scream like banshees - but they still run!

They're a little loud, but there really wasn't such a thing as a fast, quiet hard drive in the early '90s. The closest you'd get to a quiet hard drive in that era would be the early 1/4-height Conner units and those were in the 40MB range and hardly considered fast. If you want to experience loud, go get a Micropolis AV drive (if you can find one that still works).

As much as I like the SCSI2SD and other flash-based media, I love listening to old hard drives operate. My favorites are the square silver Barracudas with the multi-step spin-up. The Seagate Elite 23 is also a really cool hard drive: a full-height 5.25" 23GB hard drive from the mid-90s. It took about 30 seconds to get the platters up to speed but it had surprisingly good performance once it was ready to go.

A lot of TV shows use the sound of a Quantum ProDrive (one of the half-height 3.5" models) when they power up a computer. It's especially amusing when they do it in a "modern" computer, since those drives have been out of production since the early '90s and had a maximum capacity of about 100MB.

 

[Cory5412]

I'd say, if you can, start setting aside for one or more SCSI2SDs, but, use what you've got until it stops working. To the extent possible, make backups of any data you think of as important.

The Seagate Elite 23 is also a really cool hard drive: a full-height 5.25" 23GB hard drive from the mid-90s.

This drive absolutely yearns to be installed in an 8500 or 8600.

 

[Franklinstein]

This drive absolutely yearns to be installed in an 8500 or 8600.

You may be able to stuff one into an 8600 if you get rid of the Zip drive (if present) but there's no way it would fit in an 8500: these drives require the equivalent of two 5.25" drive bays. They're massive drives with their genesis in Control Data's labs before Seagate acquired their disk drive division. It's sort of a last gasp in an obsolete form factor though apparently 47GB models were built before the line was discontinued. Both of my 23GB units live in external enclosures and are used for vintage Mac backups.

 

[Cory5412]

The 8500 and 8600 are both the same physical shape and height as their 9 siblings, but they're both short three PCI slots. They have a 5.25" mounting pad at the bottom of the case, which I'm reasonably confident is explicitly for this purpose.

This is from the service manual for the 8600, 9600, and 9650 family of systems:



From: http://tim.id.au/laptops/apple/legacy/pm8600.9600.ws9650.pdf

In an 8600, you'd be able to drop a 5.25" FH disk in that spot without blocking any slots.

A 47-gig version of such a drive would be utterly wild, but if you needed it.

[disclaimer] I've been reading a lot of '90s macworld of late

These were probably both "the last dying gasps" and also the highest performing single disks you could get at the time. For the 8500/8600 in particular, which were marketed explicitly as desktop multimedia authoring systems, which basically means capturing and editing standard definition video for CD-ROMs, such a drive would be a reasonable addition to the machine.

A couple years later, in 1999, with DV, an average PC hard disk could have DV streamed to it with no trouble. That wasn't particularly true of most stock Mac disks in 1996.

EDIT: Whoops, I was a little too hasty. I could have sworn up and down for literally the past 20 years the 8500 and 9500 shared a case, but per http://tim.id.au/laptops/apple/legacy/powermac_8500_series.pdf it appears it's actually the same height as the 800/840/8100/8200.

Given that information, you're correct, one of these likely won't fit in an 8500, at least not without some.... "work".

My apologies.

 

[Johnnya101]

Had the time to remove the covers on all three drives.

Seagate is a 400mb. Looks great, arm moves freely. No goo I could see.

Quantum looks good. Rubber bumpers are soft but nowhere near goo.

Maxtor... Hmm... What were the engineers on when they designed that thing? I managed to get all of the bottom covers off and was able to move the arm a little bit, so I know its not gunked up. Were Maxtors like really high end or something? Waaaaaay overbuilt.

 

[Brett B.]

I would really advise against opening up every drive you've got unless it's found to have issues.  You are just inviting dust and other crap in, they are really best left alone.  

The vast majority of my old 50 pin drives are still working great.  There were quite a few Quantums that died over the years, and the ones I still have are getting loud, especially those in the ~500MB size range.  Miniscribes were notoriously unreliable.  My favorites are some 2GB Quantums that LaCie sold - offhand I don't know the model but I had a bunch that came from a school.  Super quiet and fast.  

My advise is put a drive in that's sized appropriately for the machine.  I think you could use any of those drives, it just depends on how much space you need.  I have a 500MB drive in my SE/30, quite a bit of software installed, and I imagine I still have half the drive free.  I've been putting small drives in a lot of machines lately just to use them up... and really, an 80MB drive or so is just fine for a lot of machines.  I'd be hard pressed to fill up an 80MB drive in say, an LCII.

 

[Johnnya101]

Don't worry, I know dust isn't the best. I leave it covered by sliding the cover on top of the platters, then blow it off to make sure there's nothing left after. I'm not too worried, i have done it many times and nothing bad has ever come from it. I know others have too. These aren't your modern 500 gb single platter 2.5 inch hard drives.

 

[Scott Baret]

I've had pretty good luck with the Conner 40MBs that were common in Classics. I've actually acquired junk Classics (leaked batteries, busted boards, badly burned-in screens, etc) for those drives. 

Quantums seem to be hit or miss. Capacity seems to have something to do with it, as I've lost more 80MB drives than anything. MiniScribes are all over the board too, although I've had more fail than live. 

I've saved a few drives before and have opened them up. It's not for the faint of heart!! Now I just have to get that Widget working in the Lisa...

As for the SD card solution...it's an option for some people, but I'm a purist myself. Definitely respect why some folks do it, but I like to keep things original.

 

[M235i]

Just want to take a look at all of the drives that are used in old Macs (and PC's). Hopefully this helps if a replacement drive is needed in the future.

Frankly, the best luck I have had with the slew of hard drives I have had, the Quantum's always seem to be the easiest to fix, but almost always arrive seemingly dead. It takes removing the cover and playing with the head and the stopper to get them working again. Once you do that, usually they are good to run for a while, even be stored in both hot and cold climates. Stat wise, of the 13 Quantum drives that I have, 2 have died (1 DOA and 1 that had something go wrong, only to scratch the platter). Honestly it is a shame that many of the drives (and as a result the computers they are in) get tossed as a result of gummy rubber. All you need is 10 minutes and a PSU to get them working again after 20+ years of dormancy. Prices for a working one are through the roof, but a 'broken' one can be had for under $20. That quick fix or a little diagnosing usually has the little bugger running.

The Connor SCSI and IDE drives always arrive DOA or on their last legs, usually when I get a Mac with one of those things they are backed up (if their is anything worth backing) and then run until they die, which happens pretty soon after. They are usually either gummy or the boards running them are on the fritz. Also not very fun to take apart. They are a little pricey for what they are, but are cheaper then almost any Quantum.

The Seagate drives will always work, albeit very loudly as echoed above. Never have needed to take one apart (knock on wood), but of the 5 or so I have in Macs and PC's they have never let me down. As a result though, they are some of the most expensive types to get, and are getting rare to find (for SCSI at least).

Maxtor drives... oh boy. I honestly believe they arrived from the factory broken. I have never actually seen one run properly for more than 20 minutes, either on PC or Mac. The only reason to have one is to look at the chrome plated models (which look really good) that I have lying around, but otherwise, avoid like the plague.

IBM drives also seem to have excellent reliability in anything they were put in. I have Travelstar's in quite a few laptops and they never give me an issue. They are great laptop drives, but the desktop models can be a little more sporadic and finicky. Prices are all over the place, I have seen some go for $20-$80 for the same working model. Just a matter or watching the market.

The only other HDD I can think of are WD's. They have never let me down, but I do not see them in older Macs at all. So YMMV.

 

[Scott Baret]

I second the Maxtor drive reliability.

Definitely spot-on about Quantums being easy to fix...I'm 3 for 3 with them so far. All have been the LPS model, often found in the LC. Very simple drive to work on. The ELS doesn't seem too difficult either; I do have a 160MB one of those I need to get around to sometime.

Interesting how mileage seems to vary with the Conners. The only Conner that came to me dead was one with a scratched platter.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

I only experienced 2 'modern' hard drive failures. One was a portable Western Digital that fell off the table while running (so that was definitely my fault) and the other was a 2.1GB IDE Maxtor HD from our original Win 98 PC. It was packed away very nicely but it still broke down! WTF?

I didn't know Maxtors had such a bad reputation.

 

[Franklinstein]

Apple used a few random manufacturers sporadically in the late '80s (notably Miniscribe, Sony, and Rodime) but they didn't last long, giving way to primarily Quantum, Seagate, IBM, and Western Digital, though the latter was mostly for the low-end IDE desktops (indeed there were few to no WD SCSI models available at the time). Conner had a good run in low-end desktops and in PowerBooks, and Toshiba started getting some use in the mid-90s PowerBooks. Micropolis made an occasional showing in very high-end Power Macs, specifically A/V models. They never used Fujitsu that I know of before the drives started to appear in G3-era 'Books. Hitachi didn't find any use in Macs until they bought IBM's disk drive division and those were all rebadged IBM models; none of Hitachi's homegrown drives found much, if any, use. Maxtor didn't really find any use until the New World desktops. Apple thankfully never used any of the seriously bottom-of-the-barrel drives such as those from Kalok or JTE.

Here's my Ultimate List of period hard drive manufacturers:

'80s: Stick with IBM, Seagate, Conner, or Quantum; the others are mostly junk. 

Early '90s: Keep on with IBM, Seagate, Conner, or Quantum. WD is ok if you're on a budget but they're prone to stiction. Fujitsu makes excellent SCSI drives but they tend to be expensive while their ATA drives are mediocre but usually reliable. Most other brands are still junk.

Late '90s: Still can't really go wrong with IBM, Seagate, or Fujitsu. Conner is absorbed by Seagate in 1997ish but by then they're not making the best drives; I'd avoid them, especially ATA drives in the 2GB range. Quantum drives in SCSI form are still great, but some ATA trim drives (notably the Fireball TM) have problems with controller failure; think twice about using their ATA drives until the Fireball CX series or later. Samsung isn't a bad choice if you need an ATA drive. Toshiba makes good notebook drives but they're kinda slow. WD is a last resort. Avoid the rest. Honestly Seagate makes the best drives in this period. There were so many good ones: the Decathlon and Medalist SL/Pro, the Hawk and Barracuda, the newly introduced Barracuda ATA and Cheetah, all highly recommended.

Early '00s: Avoid IBM; they had tons of problems with the DeskStar 75GXP and TravelStar 20GN series drives. Samsung isn't too bad. WD is becoming quite good following their brush with death; their newly designed product line is excellent. Fujitsu is still a solid choice but they really only make notebook and high-end enterprise drives anymore. Toshiba drives are getting better. Quantum drives disappear and are now rebadged and sold by Maxtor; still very good if you can get one of the Quantum-designed units instead of an actual Maxtor. Seagate is still good but they're getting dodgy.  

Late '00s: IBM's disk drive division has been sold off to be merged into Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. I tend to avoid them except for specific 5400RPM TravelStar models; others are unreliable and the DeskStars are hot and unreliable. Maxtor has discontinued their legacy Quantum designs (except for the Atlas series) and their in-house drives still suck; avoid. WD makes some seriously good desktop drives now, and has started building notebook drives; definitely recommended. Fujitsu only makes notebook drives now; they're generally the slowest of the pack but they're still a good choice. Seagate is starting to tank in terms of reliability, even with their 5-year warranty; avoid, especially their notebook drives. Toshiba still makes decent notebook drives.

Early '10s: Hitachi GST's drives are better but I'd still prefer not to use them. Seagate is to be avoided. Fujitsu still makes notebook drives for now, still the same as they ever were. Toshiba still makes decent notebook drives. For me, WD is the only choice, except the Green drives; those are crap and best avoided. The other manufacturers have been absorbed by someone else and either discontinued or incorporated into a different product line.

Late '10s: Seagate, WD, and Toshiba are really the only remaining manufacturers. Stick with WD (while still avoiding the Green drives), or use Toshiba if you can't; they now make desktop as well as notebook drives. Seagate drives aren't worth the trouble.