Hard drive was something I tended to over buy thru the years - if I saw a good deal I'd buy a small batch (4-6) instead of the 1 or 2 I actually needed, with the result that I've now got way more than any retro use could possibly justify, although they're easy to store (in their original double-walled multi-unit packing boxes with foam or styrene inserts) and they're a good source of compatible spare PCBs when one fails. I even have quite a few of varying sizes that have never been out their anti-static bags - Maxtor DiamondMax 40GB, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10s 80/160GB but probably worst of all a tray of 7 Hitachi CinemaStar 500GB from 2010 which were for a rebuild of a raid system which never happened!

All my used ones are zero-byted and stored away, and while they're still useful for quick and dirty test builds, I use them more now as storage capacity to record thru USB off my TV's.

That's a lot of drives. I might have like 25 that aren't in computers - most of them represented a single computer, salvaged. I would sell whatever I don't want in my drawer. These days not everyone even wants them due to flash technology, but I love using the original parts, and the sound...yeah, in this SSD world, they sound really cool and that's a big deal when you're building for a hobby.

Always better to have too much than not enough.

Well, I guess I should start scanning them and putting them on ebay 😀

After my fiasco with my Compaq Presario (AiO), which is limited to 2.1GB. I'd say they're worth keeping as they're not going to be many working examples as the years pass by.
Then again I have a soft spot for old mechanical drives. Something about the complete silence of an SD/CF/Flash solution doesn't sit right with me, especially using old hardware.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Conner drives have a nice retro ticking sound.

Conner hard drives ticking is definately not a good sign and an indication it is about to fail. I have around half a dozen in various systems Acorn/x86 of various sizes and they certainly don't tick in normal usage.

Caluser2000 wrote:

Intel486dx33 wrote:

Conner drives have a nice retro ticking sound.

Conner hard drives ticking is definately not a good sign and an indication it is about to fail. I have around half a dozen in various systems Acorn/x86 of various sizes and they certainly don't tick in normal usage.

Nah know what he means, The normal seek sound Connor drives make have a very different sound then other drives.
I even commented to my dad that our old 420MB drive sounded nicer then the WD 1GB we had just upgraded to back in the day.

The best sounding hard drive was a 20MB MFM drive in my mom's old XT. It still kind of works but the controller sometimes loses the settings of the drive when you turn the PC off and you have to re-format.

Old IDE drives can be very useful for older systems, so long as they work out cheaper than the alternatives ie. IDE-CF or SATA-IDE adapters.

There is probably still a market for old IDE drives, but I'd say it was pretty limited these days to people just looking to be more hardware or period correct. The larger sizes will definitely shift the easiest, but the smaller capacities less so unless they happen to be a super rare well sought after brand. Personally, I'd never part with any of mine, not even the most useless (capacity-wise) 104MB drive that I have. I still have actual IDE hard drives installed on most of my non-SATA systems, with the largest capacity in my collection being 250GB.

I have a 200GB IDE hard drive, used for Data Storage only, running practically 24/7 for the past 19 years - it was brand new when I bought it back in the day and it's been in active use ever since, being moved along with the various PC upgrades & replacements over the years. I'll only replace it if it dies and it's showing no signs of that anytime soon, so old IDE hard drives can still be very reliable!

Post Edit: I put 9 years above, meant 19!! 😲

Half-Saint wrote:

Errius wrote:

What were the largest IDE drives, 400 GB?

Apparently large IDE drives are still sought after by console owners such as the first xbox 😁

The hard drive compatibility list for SATA drives is pretty extensive these days and using SATA-IDE adapters with a SATA HDD is probably much simpler for the original Xbox, where you could probably install up to a 2TB drive. I know 1TB is certainly doable on those things, but myself I just have a 500GB SATA HDD installed - which I've filled so will probably upgrade at some point in the future.

Finally found my Seagate 750GB IDE hard drive after losing track of it 3 years ago..
turned up in a box in my loft..
Loaded with music and was last used in a freenas setup.
..and yes it still works fine.
Is this the largest IDE ever made ?
rgds
VS

Vipersan wrote on 2021-08-18, 13:21:

.
Is this the largest IDE ever made ?

nope 1tb were the largest IDE drives ever made.

heres a part number. So no confusion.
1000HDGI3I-TM - IDE
1000HDGI3S-TM - sata

Learned something today ..
thanx Warlord

It's time for Chia!

Large IDE drives are very rare. Most people here had just 80GB and then switched to SATA. It's very rare to find a 250GB or more. But those 80GB are not bad at all as they work in PIII rigs, also in DOS 7.1.

back in the day largest hdd I ever had was 40gb

Warlord wrote on 2021-08-18, 14:14:

nope 1tb were the largest IDE drives ever made. […]
Show full quote

Vipersan wrote on 2021-08-18, 13:21:

.
Is this the largest IDE ever made ?

nope 1tb were the largest IDE drives ever made.

heres a part number. So no confusion.
1000HDGI3I-TM - IDE
1000HDGI3S-TM - sata

Were they actually sold and what is this company anyway? From the usual manufacturers only Seagate made 750GB EIDE drive. WD & Hitachi stopped at 500GB. So this 1000GB EIDE drive makes me suspicious.

I've never seen one. Then again never would I go looking for a 1tb pata drive or buy one for that matter. probably everyone else thinks the same as me so that explains what happened.

When did people make the switch to SATA on their home computers? It was 2007 for me.

sounds about right. C2D was such a major improvement over the P4 most people had upgraded and even the last p4s that shipped before c2d were using sata.

The bigger drives were used for storage and an SSD for booting up. Apparently MickySoft Windows is slow in that regard the system . It's not uncommon at all.

My external 1T usb backup drive went tits so I've pulled the hdd OUT and the cradle comes in very handy for check PATA drives via usb......😉