Sounds of the Miniscribe 7080AT

[@Michael.Chapman]

Very familiar sounds of floppies booting MS-DOS :-) MiniScribe was set-up by Engineers and was soon at the heart of the Worlds HDD industry-a time of boom for fixed discs, the 80286/ 80386/ PC, etc. The 1-inch high 7080AT and little brother 7040AT (dual and single platters) were revolutionary in 1990, with MiniScribe’s earlier, taller, 8051A (with patented moving magnet/ stationary coil). The 8051A was their first true IDE drive. MiniScribe, Conner and Compaq were forces that showed where the HDD would go over the next 25-years. Great to hear a vigorous 7080A again :-) I really like listening to the sounds of old voice coils working!

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@Michael.Chapman They weren't particularly revolutionary in '90, but for Miniscribe they were almost a decade ahead of anything else they were selling. It would have kept the company afloat, and the design clearly served Maxtor well after the buyout. The 8051A is definitely not their first IDE offering, since the 8212/8425/8450 all had IDE options, albeit uncommon, in both 8- and 16-bit configurations (suffix X and A respectively). Personally, I'm not a huge fan of voice coil drives, they all sort of sound the same to me.

[@Michael.Chapman]

@@TheDiskMaster I overlooked the IDE steppers... My first drive was an MFM 5.25 in HH Miniscribe 3053, 3 big platters and a rotary VC. Large, heavy, beautifully cast, I still have it. Those were the days, when you could easily hear its 25 ms VCM operating. It made some wonderful, refined sounds and no attempts to hide them--a sad day when Auto Accoustic Management was introduced. Am re-writing a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive ATM--polar opposite of the 3053 :-)

[@TheDiskMaster]

Yep, performance drives like the 3053 and most other voice coil drives of the era made no attempt at all to be quiet, since they were fully focused on being as fast and reliable as possible. This was mostly because those drives were unbelievably expensive new and typically went into high end workstations!

[@maxtornogood]

Man that things zips right on through even with much of the sectors not found!

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@maxtornogood that's because this is a bug in HDmotion regarding extreme sector translation, not bad sectors

[@thegeforce6625]

man those drives are hideously rare.

[@TheDiskMaster]

Indeed, and all just for a sticker! The Maxtor version is absolutely identical in every way.

[@thegeforce6625]

@@TheDiskMaster right, has lovely sounding bearings too.

[@TheDiskMaster]

​@@thegeforce6625Yep. I'm glad to have this and a 7040AT in my collection. The label is admittedly pretty sweet, and it's a crucial but often forgotten piece of hard drive history!

[@Michael.Chapman]

@@thegeforce6625My own 7080AT (QA sticker 6 Oct 1990-by “Maxtor Colorado”) seems healthy, but it’s got some bearing noise too. High prices are asked for quality 40 to 80 MB vintage drives… they’re scarce, great fun, historic curiosities-but not in the same price league as a modern 20 TB drive that can actually be put to work :-)

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@Michael.Chapman I definitely have not paid anything approximating a modern 20TB drive for these! The 7080 and 7040 combined probably cost me under a hundred USD, including shipping. I would not call these "quality" 40MB drives, just like the Maxtor version, these are prone to failure. An extremely modern design, for sure, but not reliable.

[@MyComputerStudios_]

WHOA! A MiniScribe braded unit! What a rarity! Is the media dead tho, due to the unusual HDMotion?

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@MyComputerStudios_ Yep! I've got one more Miniscribe branded unit to show, too. No, the media is fine, HDMotion does not work correctly with some drives that have extreme sector translation as shown here.

[@MyComputerStudios_]

​@@TheDiskMasterWeird, Arnold's Maxtor branded unit does hdmotion just fine

[@TheDiskMaster]

@@MyComputerStudios_ He is probably not running it in translation mode like I am

[@arnlol]

@@MyComputerStudios_ Mine is a 7040 though. Altough I must admit I have never had that issue with any of my drives, and so much sector not found not making HDMotion run super slow is interesting.

[@TheDiskMaster]

​@@arnlolI've got a Miniscribe 7040AT as well, but it's dead.