Sounds of the Lapine Technology Titan 3532

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Lapine Technology Titan 3532
Country of Origin: USA
Introduced: 1990
Interface: ST-412HP (RLL nominal)
Capacity: 30MB
Form: 3.5 HH (1")
CHS: 615 / 4 / 26
LZN: 620
WPC: 65535
Track-track: 14.8ms
Linear access: 43.2ms
Random access: 72.9ms
Rotational: 3600RPM
Media: Metallic unlubricated, inline TF heads
Disks: 2
Actuation: Rotary band swingarm stepper
Feedback: None
Lift/Lock/Park: Rod controlled head lift
Brake: Dynamic
Service life: Unknown
Related models: KC-20A (MFM), KC-30A, Lapine Titan LT-200 (MFM), Lapine 3522 (MFM)
Failures: Capacitors
Settings: No link at this time
My thoughts:
Sadly, Lapine drives are very hard to find. These drives are incredibly reliable, and despite how totally beat up this drive is, it works after almost no effort at all! This is the one that did not spin up in my Texas Haul videos (Which I am still working on, mind you).

[@bobjoe2827]

Lapine had an interesting relationship with Kyocera as they were contracted by Lapine to manufacture their hard drive designs and were later sued by Lapine for using their designs on their own drives without permission. Capacitors are starting to become a problem on a lot of vintage hard drives, however early 3.5" hard drives seem to be the most problematic (especially if they are of Japanese origin for some reason).

[@TheDiskMaster]

Indeed, I have noticed that both this and the Kyocera KC-20A drives which share it's chassis have begun to have serious capacitor issues. I had heard they were sued, yes. The case doesn't appear to have been formally closed until the 2000s when it was largely irrelevant anyways. Love that legal system.

[@thegeforce6625]

Had no idea that Kyocera manufactured these drives.

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@thegeforce6625 Lapine designed the KC-20B as well, as the LT-2000. 80scompaqpc is lucky enough to have one!

[@wahidtrynaheghugh260]

I recently fell into the similarly autistic rabbit hole of server fans, and my computer went from silent to REEEEEE. I can’t fall down another rabbit hole lmao.

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@wahidtrynaheghugh260 Says who? We always have room in the server and in the community for another enthusiast, even if you don't become a collector!

[@thegeforce6625]

awesome sounding seektest

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@thegeforce6625 indeed! I wonder why Kyocera changed the firmware for the KC20A.

[@joshua-pj3rd]

That's so weird to me because I grew up in a little town in Oregon called LaPine

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@joshua-pj3rd haha I wonder if they're related to the company.

[@joshua-pj3rd]

@@TheDiskMaster I was kind of wondering the same thing it would be a total trip if it was because the population is under 3k

[@thegeforce6625]

3:42 is oddly musical to me haha

[@TheDiskMaster]

IDESDI really does make some strange sounds, doesn't it?

[@thegeforce6625]

@@TheDiskMasteryeah definitely.

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@thegeforce6625 It's trying to use some really simple heuristics based on data the controller hands back about the state of the drive in order to calculate it's geometry. It's a very interesting algorithm!

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

Thank you, nice asmr

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@BoraHorzaGobuchul no problem. Primarily here for the documentary efforts but to each their own!

[@BoraHorzaGobuchul]

@@TheDiskMaster brings back the childhood. Never had this particular drive but my 330meg scsci drive made similar sounds ) Down the memory lane

[@ewhartiii]

The poor bearings in that drive are screaming for some lubrication too

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@ewhartiii Unfortunately, there is no way to do this without destroying the spindle motor. It is completely sealed.

[@MyComputerStudios_]

Why do most drives you test nowadays keep giving errors in the first program and HDmotion?

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@MyComputerStudios_ Because HDAT is a disk diagnostic program and is purposely looking for errors, and because HDMotion attempts to random read basically every sector on the drive. These drives are extremely rare and there is no reliable way for me to fix these errors, so if I want to demonstrate the drives, this is what I have to deal with.

[@bobjoe2827]

@@TheDiskMaster I'm sure you are aware of this but sometimes it is worth a check of the cables/contacts of these drives. I have a MiniScribe 3650 that showed a bad head 3 when testing (attempted LLF), however before opening it I tried cleaning the contacts on the PCB and the drive actually booted without error (original LLF must have been on an AT class controller).

[@TheDiskMaster]

​@@bobjoe2827Sadly, if you watch the video closely, you will see that this is not the case. Errors on head 3 are consistent and only span cylinder 0 to 284. A poor connection would cause head 3 to never be legible, but this suggests an actual media error. This drive is very tired and came out of a warehouse.