Inside of an extremely rare Daeyoung DX-3120A hard drive

[@gblargg]

I didn't know they still used stepper motors in hard drives of that size. That's pretty fast for a stepper motor.

[@arnlol]

This is the very last stepper motor drive to ever be designed (but not sold, it was designed after the Kalok KL3120 but they went bankrupt before Kalok did as far as I know), it also is the stepper drive with the highest data density, using 2 60MB platters (The Kalok used 3 40MB platters, and the Seagate ST351A/X which is the last stepper drive from Seagate used a single 40MB platter)

[@JankPods0201]

​@@arnlol Never knew this Was Designed after a KL-3120! Thanks for the Fun Fact!

[@Kali_Krause]

​@@arnlol Daeyoung filed bankruptcy in 1993. Kalok lasted another year, going bankrupt in 1994

[@TheDiskMaster]

Yep, this is one of two series of SL form factor drives which had stepper motors. The other being the Seagate ST-325 and ST-351.

[@jonesgang]

When HDDs only held a few MBs this was very common in cheaper hard drives. They were basically just a floppy drive on steroids. Winchester drives were the exception. They were more like the modern HDD just a lot bigger.

[@arnlol]

Yeah some of the older drives were pretty close to a floppy drive, with linear stepper motors and all, and the ST-506/412 interface had some similarity as well. The Daeyoung is a bit further away being rotary and with "intelligence" on the PCB being IDE, but it is also the last stepper drive to be designed, while the other drives were almost all voice coil and had basically nothing in common with floppies at that point.

[@TheDiskMaster]

Every hard disk shipped during the era of the IBM PC was a Winchester drive. Winchester refers to the IBM 3340's use of heads which float on an air bearing above the spinning disks, which reduced wear and extended the lifetime of drives greatly.

[@hampopper3150]

The old computer sounds that keep you up at night.

[@maxtornogood]

Nice overhead shot of the drive!

[@peterjohnson9438]

Hmm, the drive working fine and then dying soon after being opened up reminds me of a case modding project by some dude who built a case that looked like a mechanical beetle and was supposed to have big, bulbous, LED illuminated eyes which would be the spinning platters and read heads of the hard drives. He'd take the lids off the drives, attempt to immediately put the drives back into ESD bags, then cut a hole in the lids and install the see-through dome (which I think was made out of some form of plastic such as lexan instead of borosilicate glass which would have been a lot more resistant to electrical charge build-up). Long story short, the drives looked great and performed well once he reassembled them, but they were dead the next day or so. I never got an answer as to why that happens, but I'd expect it to have something to do with dust or excessive moisture ingress.

[@arnlol]

Yes drives aren’t meant to be opened, and it’s likely particules in the air will damage them, that’s why I don’t open a drive unless it’s bad. Here I thought it was bad that’s why I opened it, but then the ST jumper appeared to make it work. But afterwards it failed with the stepper doing nothing at all and I believe that’s the PCB that failed, considering it had corrosion on it that is not very surprising. I’ve opened other drives of the same era and they survived, I still wouldn’t recommend doing it unless you have no choice (eg. Fixing rubber issue in early quantum drives, or the drive is already dead/full of bad sectors)

[@peterjohnson9438]

@@arnlol oh, I found the case mod project: it's Mashie's Y2K-Bug, in case you're interested. Still up on his website.

[@TheDiskMaster]

You son of a gun I moved a whole bunch of stuff around to get my Daeyoung video out before you! Still tomorrow morning, but I guess I won't be the first to publish on YT with it.

[@arnlol]

Complaining not allowed when having a working Daeyoung DX-3120A ;) I didn't know you actually moved videos around to try and post it first, thought you just decided you would start posting some IDE drives now, and the Daeyoung would obviously be a good one to start with considering how rare it is. People are going to get much more from your video hearing one that actually works, but I guess I at least could show what it looks like on the inside.

[@TheDiskMaster]

​​@@arnlolhaha I actually pushed to get my setup all put together to record IDE stuff and edited photos, wrote up a description, and recorded + uploaded the video with the intention of beating you to the punch Honestly I think you probably have the better video here since there's nothing to watch on mine - mostly just the sound, which you also got a lot of.

[@nup5]

based. I would like to see (and hear) a video of this old drive. And I see you recently uploaded a video! Time to experience it.

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@nup5 Yep, I had scheduled it for the saturday after this was posted. I was going to push it up to Wednesday, but figured I ought to stick to my schedule. There's a new drive every weekend.

[@windisk1112]

Spins and does nothing? Huh that sounds like my Seagate ST296N.

[@markrongics294]

I have a Samsung (idk model number) hdd and I've taken it appart. After I took it apart the drive didn't work, and I was expecting that, but it did it's seektest, wich was interesting to me. After like 2 more weeks, it only spun up, and the actuator arm moved to the far edge, the back, and then to the middle and started beeping. I wonder what's the problem.

[@jjohnson71958]

sounds like a rock band playing read speed

[@adinnugroho6544]

Is this HDD from South Korea?

[@arnlol]

Yes, "Made in Korea" is written on the label of the drive

[@Nathan15038]

That’s awesome

[@arnlol]

Yeah, I wish the PCB didn't die shortly after, but at least I could see it do something

[@Nathan15038]

@@arnlol yeah happens it’s a surprise that the hard drive is still even running. A lot of them are most likely dead. 😢

[@MisterMarin]

Daeyoung DX-3120A died hard. 😉

[@ronny332]

Amazing how cost reduced that design already was. two motors, one arm, 3 bearings. But the stepper motor was not efficient enough for later models.

[@TheDiskMaster]

Efficiency was not the concern, it was the necessity of high accuracy closed loop positioner control that allowed for far greater data density.

[@alanh6797]

💕 "Promosm"