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Seagate made good drives back then also.

The 20GB 5.25" 1/2 height drive was a disaster. I worked in a clone shop in those days & half the drives I pulled from stock failed, with a good number failing before the customer even took the machine home (burn-in was usually ~1 day).

However, the 20GB 3.5" drive was faster (40ms vs 65ms average seek) and I never had one fail. It was more expensive and one of the first drives in that form factor.

I had few failures with the 40GB 5.25" 1/2 heights . The 30GB RLLs failed completely less often than the 20GB MFMs, but had horrible data corruption problems.

My favorite drives were the 40GB full-height drives. They used some kind of linear actuator instead of a swing-arm for the heads & shook the whole bench when running seek tests. Start-up currents are instructive (12V supply): 4A for the ST4051 full-height 5.25", 2.4A for the ST225 1/2 height 5.25" and 2A for the ST125 1/2 height 3.5".

Anyone know if the 20GB MFM coincided with a new factory opening in Singapore?

This post on the Classic Computing mailing list has more.

Also search for segate st225 quality at Google...

Seagate made good drives back then also.

The 20GB 5.25" 1/2 height drive was a disaster. I worked in a clone shop in those days & half the drives I pulled from stock failed, with a good number failing before the customer even took the machine home (burn-in was usually ~1 day).

However, the 20GB 3.5" drive was faster (40ms vs 65ms average seek) and I never had one fail. It was more expensive and one of the first drives in that form factor.

I had few failures with the 40GB 5.25" 1/2 heights . The 30GB RLLs failed completely less often than the 20GB MFMs, but had horrible data corruption problems.

My favorite drives were the 40GB full-height drives. They used some kind of linear actuator instead of a swing-arm for the heads & shook the whole bench when running seek tests. Start-up currents are instructive (12V supply): 4A for the ST4051 full-height 5.25", 2.4A for the ST225 1/2 height 5.25" and 2A for the ST125 1/2 height 3.5".

Anyone know if the 20GB MFM coincided with a new factory opening in Singapore?

This post on the Classic Computing mailing list has more.

Also search for segate st225 quality at Google...

ClassicCmp was a mailing list first, and I guess that's about what it is today, but much more is planned. I really mean that! CC was started in 1997 by people other than me. There was a very simple web site up for a while, but the guy in charge of it never updated it, and nobody else cared to do it. It stagnated. I joined the list about two years ago, and I became the list administrator just a few months ago when Jay West decided to take a break. I would have liked to start working on a new, improved CC site right then, but I was also working very hard to finish college. When you factor out the time I spend (usually) every day moderating posts for the cctech list (OT posts are filtered there), I had zero time for any other CC-related work. I needed to get something up there quick to fix the very incorrect 1997 pages, so what you see there now is my 3AM coffee-induced hack.

Some really nice things are planned for classiccmp.org:

• Better post archiving with spamproofing. My spamproofing method is somewhat unique.
• An archive of data files (software, docs, images, etc.).
• A link farm, which we hope will become a start-here-first resource for vintage-computing-related surfing.
• A FAQ. There is an old FAQ which you can probably still find with Google somewhere out there, but it has some very incorrect things in it. I'm working on a new FAQ.
• More moderators for cctech. Right now it's just me, so there is a serious lag time for cctech subscribers. We just implemented the second, moderated list a few months ago, and it seems to be working fine. It just needs more moderators.

If you even the slightest bit interested in classic computers, please goto the list information page and subscribe to the list. At last count (a few days ago), we had 720 members. Average load is 50-100 messages per day. We'd love to add more people to the discussion.

ClassicCmp was a mailing list first, and I guess that's about what it is today, but much more is planned. I really mean that! CC was started in 1997 by people other than me. There was a very simple web site up for a while, but the guy in charge of it never updated it, and nobody else cared to do it. It stagnated. I joined the list about two years ago, and I became the list administrator just a few months ago when Jay West decided to take a break. I would have liked to start working on a new, improved CC site right then, but I was also working very hard to finish college. When you factor out the time I spend (usually) every day moderating posts for the cctech list (OT posts are filtered there), I had zero time for any other CC-related work. I needed to get something up there quick to fix the very incorrect 1997 pages, so what you see there now is my 3AM coffee-induced hack.

Some really nice things are planned for classiccmp.org:

• Better post archiving with spamproofing. My spamproofing method is somewhat unique.
• An archive of data files (software, docs, images, etc.).
• A link farm, which we hope will become a start-here-first resource for vintage-computing-related surfing.
• A FAQ. There is an old FAQ which you can probably still find with Google somewhere out there, but it has some very incorrect things in it. I'm working on a new FAQ.
• More moderators for cctech. Right now it's just me, so there is a serious lag time for cctech subscribers. We just implemented the second, moderated list a few months ago, and it seems to be working fine. It just needs more moderators.

If you even the slightest bit interested in classic computers, please goto the list information page and subscribe to the list. At last count (a few days ago), we had 720 members. Average load is 50-100 messages per day. We'd love to add more people to the discussion.

In a way the january 2003 archives are kinda scary

>>>>

other wise it would be rather disappointing.

In a way the january 2003 archives are kinda scary

>>>>

other wise it would be rather disappointing.

• GCR recording (as opposed to MFM)
• 8 zones of recording (the spindle speed was adjusted depending on what track it was on, much like a CD reader)
• 47 tracks, 2 sides
• 2 heads 180deg opposite each other
• 62.5TPI

Email discussing the specifics of the 8 zones, and other technical info.

BTW, anyone owning an old Mac or any Apple][ series outfitted with a 3.5" drive has a similar setup. 5 zones, but definitely directly-opposing heads and not this nonstandard setup. I think the 5zone drives finally got the axe when Jobs decided to not include a floppy with iMac.