I can understand. And wow..15 years? 😲
That's awesomely respectable for a harddrive (especially a Seagate 🤣)

I'd recommend to, instead of lighting up that sigar, have a glass of Scotch single malt whiskey though 😁

Reminds me that my Seagate ST3144A would be still alive today if i didn't let it accidently fall of a shelf. The shelf was high, it slipped of my hand and straight on the floor. Was a pretty rough fall. These models had a reputation for durability.

http://www.redhill.net.au/d/123.php

I have a ST31722A (1.6GB) and a ST34342A (1.2GB) both perfectly functional. The 1.6Gb has a couple of bad blocks, the 1.2Gb is clean. The oldest working HDDs I have are a 600mb and 800MzB Western Digital HDDs (black with red stripe) and a 1000mb double thickness 3.5" SCSI toshiba HDD

I think I've got an ST34342A stashed somewhere in my box of hard drives. It came out of an old Packard Bell system I used to have, and, last time I checked, it still works. Also have a pretty similar ST31277A 1.2GB Seagate that I think works as well.

What makes old parts special is.... it like a time machine. What if you got rid of everything every three years or older and had no record of where you had been?

But...it happens. Years ago I finally tossed the Conner 1200 MB that was in my old 486. I had got rid of the computer itself a long time ago but kept the drive.... technically it was still working but it was taking longer and longer to spin up. Also lost a Maxtor 4.3 gigabyte a few years ago (big surprise there - Maxtors of that era were absolute junk.)

This is the first "good" drive I have lost

It it is survived by a ST34622A (about the same era) and a whole slew of ST340014A and ST340016A models. Some of those are pushing 10-12 years old and still going strong.

ncmark wrote:

big surprise there - Maxtors of that era were absolute junk

Weird - I have a few old maxtor HDDs and they all work fine - two MAXTOR 71084A 1GB drives and a couple of 90432D3 4.3gb drives. It's quantum fireball HDD's that have started to die out on me... first it was an old 540mb HDD I had in a 386, then a 7.4GB then a 13gb.

That Maxtor was an RMA of an RMA....at that point I had no faith in Maxtor whatsoever and never really used that drive

Tetrium wrote:

I can understand. And wow..15 years? 😲
That's awesomely respectable for a harddrive (especially a Seagate 🤣)

The ST225 would like to speak with you.

CelGen wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

I can understand. And wow..15 years? 😲
That's awesomely respectable for a harddrive (especially a Seagate 🤣)

The ST225 would like to speak with you.

I know, was just trying to make a joke. Most manufacturers went from making good stuff to bad stuff and vice versa.
Was actually in the attic just a minute ago, looking for this Prairytech laptop drive I heard so many wonderful tales about 😁

Couldn't find it, but I did find something else that kinda warrants a mini-re-unboxing (will post pics soon)

edit: Went through my old pics and found a pic of some of the oldest drives I should still have laying around.
The one at the middle bottom looks like this one, except it's 40MB instead of 80MB
http://redhill.net.au/d/129.php

I'm not sure I still have this box, but I'm certain I never threw the drives in the bin.

if all of your old hdds bite the dust, i guess, use a newer ide hdd or get a cf card.

Ah yes. Back when Seagate actually made drives that didn't blow up after 30 months. They used to build quality drives. Now... let's not talk about it.

Just bought a Seagate Medalist 4312 - quietest 4.3GB drive I've ever used.

Well - my replacement arrived Thursday 😀
I got a ST36422 (6.4 gigabyte) for only $16 on Ebay. It is almost mint condition, and if I am reading the attribute data correctly, it has seen very little use. Like... only 100 cycles? 😀

As to the above comment I agree at one time Seagate was much better than it is now - right now I am afraid Western Digital is making the better product

What's the smallest commercially released SATA drive?

Errius wrote:

What's the smallest commercially released SATA drive?

Seen 20GB....

I've got a couple of brand new 16GB SATA SSDs in my DOS machines. They are pretty cheap now (AU$15 on eBay) because 16GB is too small for modern machines, but it's huge for DOS and for most of them I am only using the first 4GB as two 2GB partitions. But being an SSD it's silent and runs as fast as the IDE controller can handle.

They are sold as mSATA cards, so I have put them inside a 2.5" mSATA to SATA case, and mounted that in a 2.5" to 3.5" bracket.

Errius wrote:

What's the smallest commercially released SATA drive?

When it concerns the traditional harddrive with platters, I'd say this might turn out to be a laptop drive

SpinRite is a GREAT tool for keeping old hard drives healthy. I try to "SpinRite" all my drives at least once a year on level 4. Drives I do this on never die.