Justin1091 wrote on 2020-09-30, 21:16:

is it possible to use a SCA one in a desktop PC, using some sort of converter (or convertor, heh)?

Indeed, Purchased my 5th one just last week!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SCSI-SCA-80Pin-to- … 353.m2749.l2649

Works well but has 1 small design flaw. The rear of the molex connector sticks out quite far and can short on the HDD if the adaptor isn't exactly 90 degrees. Bit of electrical tape or something to insulate the rear of the connector fixes that though.

Yes, that is dangerous. I also cover them with electrical tape.

That is the SCA806850 model which may be too tall for some setups. There are also the SCA8050 and SCA8068 which drop one of the connectors and are shorter.

One thing I've noticed with the SCA8050 (and may possibly apply to the others) is that the HDD LED connector works the opposite of normal: on when the drive is idle and off when the drive is active.

So I saw a great deal for a new 15K RPM drive yesterday, didn't buy old hardware for some time so thought why not. It's ultra fast compared to the 10K drives the PC had, and believe me it's quiet, I'd say a 80% reduction in noise while being 15K RPM! The speed and silence is crazy, zero vibration. Must be because it's brand new!

Thanks for the SCA convertor suggestions guys, but I got lucky and found a molex one.

One question though, I did have two drives on the SCSI cable; does it matter that I now only have one? Or do I need a single connector cable, I think not as it works fine but who knows.

Justin1091 wrote on 2020-10-06, 21:52:

So I saw a great deal for a new 15K RPM drive yesterday, didn't buy old hardware for some time so thought why not. It's ultra fast compared to the 10K drives the PC had, and believe me it's quiet, I'd say a 80% reduction in noise while being 15K RPM! The speed and silence is crazy, zero vibration. Must be because it's brand new!

Thanks for the SCA convertor suggestions guys, but I got lucky and found a molex one.

One question though, I did have two drives on the SCSI cable; does it matter that I now only have one? Or do I need a single connector cable, I think not as it works fine but who knows.

At least in consumer drives, fluid bearings have commonly been used in the last 15 or so years. They are quieter, run cooler and do not, as they age, develop that annoying noise so typical of worn ball bearings.

chinny22 wrote on 2020-09-29, 09:32:

Dealt with a few workstations in my life. Under a desk in an open office they just become part of the background noise, never as […]
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Dealt with a few workstations in my life.
Under a desk in an open office they just become part of the background noise, never as quiet as their IDE counterpart but not as noticeable as a quiet room in a house.

If you listen to this when the 4th HDD led lights up, you can hear the sound of a drive with a bad bearing compared to the rest (all 10k drives)
https://youtu.be/Y_ztYj80HSY

Same machine with a mix of "newer" 10 and 15k drives
https://youtu.be/SmDx2ZM44JU

Thanks for this video! It was awful! :'(
I wouldn't be able to continuously bear such noise 😜

You really should listen to MFM Harddrives hehe
Consider sitting next to a XT Machine with a spinning 10 MBytes Drive writing a Text in Microsoft Word

matze79 wrote on 2020-10-06, 23:09:

You really should listen to MFM Harddrives hehe
Consider sitting next to a XT Machine with a spinning 10 MBytes Drive writing a Text in Microsoft Word

The coffeegrinding noises (similar to how a floppy drive makes extra noises when reading and writing) are not any issue to me. It's the constant whining from hell that I can't bear :'(

Tetrium wrote on 2020-10-06, 23:26:

matze79 wrote on 2020-10-06, 23:09:

You really should listen to MFM Harddrives hehe
Consider sitting next to a XT Machine with a spinning 10 MBytes Drive writing a Text in Microsoft Word

The coffeegrinding noises (similar to how a floppy drive makes extra noises when reading and writing) are not any issue to me. It's the constant whining from hell that I can't bear :'(

I could not agree more . That whining is unbearable! I have drives in my living room (NAS) that have been spinning 24/7 (power management disabled) for over 9 years and are still as quiet as the day that they were put into service (yes they are RAIDed, yes I have an offline backup and yes they are due to be prophylactically replaced). Drives from before the fluid bearing era, SCSI or otherwise, would likely sound like a broken angle grinder by now .

21c SCSI hdds usually used in Server machines, so that loud sounds doesn't concerned.
I think 15k RPM SCSI hdds even more and more loud 🙁

quovadis11 wrote on 2020-10-07, 16:06:

21c SCSI hdds usually used in Server machines, so that loud sounds doesn't concerned.
I think 15k RPM SCSI hdds even more and more loud 🙁

Yes and the 15K variety also ran very hot hence lots of noisy server fans. We had racks of those when I did datacenter work.