RE: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Kip Koon - The Computer Doc via cctalk]

I'll take them all please.  Let me know the cost of shipping.  Thanks.
Kip


-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Guy N. via 
cctalk
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2018 10:33 PM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: PATA hard disks, anyone?

The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H cool old 
stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin.  There's a big carton full of PATA 
hard disks.  Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB range, a few larger, a few 
smaller.

Anyone have any use for these?  You can have them for the cost of shipping, or 
free for local pickup in Bothell, WA.  They're going to be recycled as scrap if 
I don't find a home for them.

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Richard Pope via cctalk]

Bill,
I have a 30 year old IBM SCSI drive that still works great. Yes, 
every company has had good drives and bad drives. I have had Quantum 
drives that have lasted for decades and I have had ones that died in a year.

:)
GOD Bless and Thanks,
rich!

On 3/28/2018 5:03 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:


On 03/28/2018 01:04 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote:

I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had
almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of
damage.

A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives.  Generally, they
were good, but expensive.

Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe.



I have ancient Micropolis and Miniscribe disks here that still
work great.  Seems every company went thru at least one
model that was trash.  The worst from my experience were
IBM disks made in Thailand.

bill

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 03/28/2018 05:03 AM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:

> I have ancient Micropolis and Miniscribe disks here that still
> work great.  Seems every company went thru at least one
> model that was trash.  The worst from my experience were
> IBM disks made in Thailand.

Were there ever any *good* JTS PATA drives?

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

On 03/28/2018 01:04 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote:
>> I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had
>> almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of
>> damage.
> A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives.  Generally, they
> were good, but expensive.
>
> Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe.
>
>

I have ancient Micropolis and Miniscribe disks here that still
work great.  Seems every company went thru at least one
model that was trash.  The worst from my experience were
IBM disks made in Thailand.

bill

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 28 March 2018 at 01:43, Chuck Guzis via cctalk  wrote:
> Digging around on the pointer from Al to backblaze, I found this, which,
> to me is far more meaningful in terms of presentation of data:
>
> https://hackernoon.com/applying-medical-statistics-to-the-backblaze-hard-drive-stats-36227cfd5372

Remarkable and fascinating.

The charts for Seagate are especially reliable.

It came as a surprise to me. In 30y in the business, almost anyone
involved in selecting, specifying, purchasing, or maintaining hardware
inevitably has _strong_ opinions on the reliability, or lack thereof,
of certain brands of hard disk.

Personally, I've used them _all_. I've seen several-decades-old hard
disks working perfectly, I've seen brand new drives fail, I've watched
batches of them die progressively.

They can _all_ fail. I have no angels or demons -- I have seen random
sudden failures of every vendor known to humanity, and superb
longevity from every vendor too.

But if there's a general trend, it's that the bigger, the more
fragile. I have decade-old 300GB drives in routine use that are fine.
I've also had multiple failures of new multi-terabyte-class drives, to
my personal cost.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

I have a couple of applications where I want the largest THIN 2.5" SATA 
drive.  Currently, that is the 2TB Seagate/Samsung.

2TB and up SSDs will be here.  Eventually.


Comparing "internal"/"external" prices,
it seems to cost about $30 to have the external USB3
case removed and discarded.

I have found those drives to be even more reliable
than an Exatron Stringy Floppy.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred ci...@xenosoft.com

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[David Brownlee via cctalk]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2018, 06:04 Chuck Guzis via cctalk 
wrote:

> On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote:
> > I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had
> > almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of
> > damage.
>
> A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives.  Generally, they
> were good, but expensive.
>
> Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe.
>

Micropolis quality dropped way down towards the end - at Dreamworks we used
to refer to it as  "Micropolis - for all your data loss needs"

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 03/27/2018 08:27 PM, dwight wrote:
> I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had
> almost 100% failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of
> damage.

A lot of outfits (e.g. Sun, HP) used Micropolis drives.  Generally, they
were good, but expensive.

Maybe you're thinking of Miniscribe.

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[dwight via cctalk]

I recall at one company we used Micropolous ( SP? ) drives. We had almost 100% 
failure in less than 6 months. It did our company a lot of damage.

Dwight



From: cctalk <cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org> on behalf of Chuck Guzis via 
cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 5:27:32 PM
To: Ali via cctalk
Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?


> Interesting but consistent with my informal observations. My Hitachi
> enterprise class 4gb hdd are still going strong after multiple power
> outages and almost 5 years of 24x7 on time. Granted not much reading
> and writing occurs but the fact that they are spinning is probably
> the biggest wear and tear on them. Helium drives? Only if you have
> the money to replace them yearly and have a RAID 1 set of a RAID 6
> volume
I took a look at my 1TB drive stash.  They're branded as Toshiba, which,
I believe are really Hitachi.  So maybe not so bad.

But on those charts, the 3TB Seagate really shows an astonishing failure
rate...

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Ethan via cctalk]

Hitachi 3 and 4tb are VERY good, as are the equivalent Toshiba from when WD 
divested themselves
of the Hitachi hi-end line.


Been runnning 4 HGST 4TB for a long while now at home and have been really 
happy. My best disks.



1tb was the switchover point to vertical recording, so those (and esp seagate 
1.5tb) are terrible


Ah, have a bunch of used 1.5TB seagates and there was about a 70% failure 
rate but I assumed it was due to age on disk and going from 24x7 to off 
for a few months then back on. Hoping to move off of those onto 30TB of WD 
disks soon if the drives aren't totally dead.



I have a few helium-filled drives spinning. They've been fine, but I don't know 
for how long yet.


Have a few HGST 8TB He drives at $work, out of 50 or so maybe 1 failure in 
2 years. Very solid but our most expensive drives until you get into flash 
storage.


I'm interested to hear how the 12TB Seagates perform. A friend I believe 
got a few hundred in so it will be interesting in a year to hear if 
they're reliable or not.

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

> Interesting but consistent with my informal observations. My Hitachi
> enterprise class 4gb hdd are still going strong after multiple power
> outages and almost 5 years of 24x7 on time. Granted not much reading
> and writing occurs but the fact that they are spinning is probably
> the biggest wear and tear on them. Helium drives? Only if you have
> the money to replace them yearly and have a RAID 1 set of a RAID 6
> volume
I took a look at my 1TB drive stash.  They're branded as Toshiba, which,
I believe are really Hitachi.  So maybe not so bad.

But on those charts, the 3TB Seagate really shows an astonishing failure
rate...

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Ali via cctalk]

 Original message 
From: Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
Date: 3/27/18  4:43 PM  (GMT-08:00) 
To: "Tapley, Mark via cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? 

Digging around on the pointer from Al to backblaze, I found this, which,
to me is far more meaningful in terms of presentation of data:

Interesting but consistent with my informal observations. My Hitachi enterprise 
class 4gb hdd are still going strong after multiple power outages and almost 5 
years of 24x7 on time. Granted not much reading and writing occurs but the fact 
that they are spinning is probably the biggest wear and tear on them.
Helium drives? Only if you have the money to replace them yearly and have a 
RAID 1 set of a RAID 6 volume
-Ali

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

Digging around on the pointer from Al to backblaze, I found this, which,
to me is far more meaningful in terms of presentation of data:

https://hackernoon.com/applying-medical-statistics-to-the-backblaze-hard-drive-stats-36227cfd5372

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 03/27/2018 04:04 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:

> 
> Hitachi 3 and 4tb are VERY good, as are the equivalent Toshiba from when WD 
> divested themselves
> of the Hitachi hi-end line.

Hmmm, I haven't actually installed a 1TB drive in any mission-critical
equipment yet--still sitting in original packaging on a shelf.   Mostly,
I use 500GB drives.   Haven't had a failure in years.

Maybe I'll leave the drives shelved.  I suppose I could donate them to
some deserving kid, but that might be cruel.

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 3/27/18 12:44 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

> Am I being silly?


Hitachi 3 and 4tb are VERY good, as are the equivalent Toshiba from when WD 
divested themselves
of the Hitachi hi-end line.

1tb was the switchover point to vertical recording, so those (and esp seagate 
1.5tb) are terrible

I have a few helium-filled drives spinning. They've been fine, but I don't know 
for how long yet.

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Ethan via cctalk]

Are they functional or decorative?


3TB Seagate
They will likely fail. Defective model. Know someone that doesn't even RMA 
them, straight to trash. Replaces them with WD.


(Note that all Seagate models have the issue, just something wrong with 
a 3TB model.)


- Ethan


--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Tapley, Mark via cctalk]

Eric,
my 17 yo son is building up a gaming computer out of a Mac Pro. If you 
are serious about getting rid of these, I might encourage him to set up a Raid 
5 with 3 of them and 1 or 2 spares. I would think it would read and write 
pretty fast until it broke, and then he could transition the data to a more 
robust drive or set of drives. Meantime, if I’m wrong, it’s not very critical 
data to lose.
Let me know if that seems like a reasonable deal, and if so what you’d 
want above shipping.

- Mark
210-522-6025 office 
210-379-4635cell



On Mar 27, 2018, at 1:48 PM, Eric Smith via cctalk  
wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk 
> wrote:
> 
>> and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them
>> aren't very reliable.
>> 
> 
> If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras!
> :-(

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[geneb via cctalk]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:


It's probably foolish and irrational, but I somehow just don't trust the
bargain-basement 4TB drives to perform long-term.

Am I being silly?

Not really.  Have you looked at the drive statistics published by 
Backblaze?  Here's a report for the 3rd quarter of 2017: 
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-failure-rates-q3-2017/


Seagate drives are the worst out there, while HGST drives seem to last the 
longest.


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 03/27/2018 09:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote:

> I have a hook-up to get some older drives from another company (1.5TB,
> etc) and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on
> them aren't very reliable. I'd imaigne the older ones hold up much
> better since they were more expensive and less density.

Call it superstition on my part, but for other than a couple of 2TB
drives used for backup (i.e. powered and run only occasionally), my
working drives are mostly 500GB-1TB SATA models.

It's probably foolish and irrational, but I somehow just don't trust the
bargain-basement 4TB drives to perform long-term.

Am I being silly?

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[geneb via cctalk]

From: "cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
To: et...@757.org, "cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 11:48:22 AM
Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
wrote:


and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them
aren't very reliable.



If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras!
:-(


I bet they'd fit great in a clay pidgeon thrower. :)

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Norman Jaffe via cctalk]

Are they functional or decorative? 

From: "cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
To: et...@757.org, "cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2018 11:48:22 AM 
Subject: Re: PATA hard disks, anyone? 

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
wrote: 

> and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them 
> aren't very reliable. 
> 

If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras! 
:-( 

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Eric Smith via cctalk]

On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk 
wrote:

> and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on them
> aren't very reliable.
>

If anyone wants some Seagate ST3000DM001 drives (3TB SATA), I've got extras!
:-(

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 03/27/2018 09:19 AM, Ethan via cctalk wrote:

> Yep! I've watched thousand(s) of pounds of working hard drives get
> shredded.

This is nothing new.  In the 1970s, the official CDC diktat was to
reduce any surplused equipment to scrap.  That included taking a
sledgehammer to disk drives and other objects.  I witnessed lots of
functional gear done in this way.

Apparently this was to prevent surplus parts finding their way into the
supply stream--and then having to service them.

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Ethan via cctalk]

The advantages of working for a small company... the sysadmin is a
long-time employee who's just moved into that role, he and I are good
buddies.  And there's not anything worth $$$ data recovery on them
anyway.



I hate seeing perfectly good working equipment reduced to low-value
scrap, so I'm wiping these drives at home on my own time to prevent
that.


Yep! I've watched thousand(s) of pounds of working hard drives get 
shredded.


I have a hook-up to get some older drives from another company (1.5TB, 
etc) and well... let's just say that "newer" used disks with 4 years on 
them aren't very reliable. I'd imaigne the older ones hold up much better 
since they were more expensive and less density.





--
: Ethan O'Toole

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Guy N. via cctalk]

On Mon, 2018-03-26 at 11:18 -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> I'm surprised that your sysadmin is allowing this to happen.  Many large
> outfits have a policy of sending any hard disk, regardless of content to
> the industrial shredders.

The advantages of working for a small company... the sysadmin is a
long-time employee who's just moved into that role, he and I are good
buddies.  And there's not anything worth $$$ data recovery on them
anyway.

I hate seeing perfectly good working equipment reduced to low-value
scrap, so I'm wiping these drives at home on my own time to prevent
that.

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Tomasz Rola via cctalk]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 07:44:58PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> On 26 March 2018 at 19:34, Tomasz Rola via cctalk  
> wrote:
> >
> > I have heard good things of MHDD diagnostic/repair program in the
> > context of low level format and generally checking health of spinning
> > disks.
> 
> That's a new one on me.
> 
> I have occasionally used, and often recommend, DBAN -- Darik's Boot And Nuke.
> 
> https://dban.org/

Interesting. But judging from descriptions, mhdd is very different
tool/beast. Not that I can recommend one over another, having no
experience (when in trouble, I just ran dd over the disk or parts of
it).

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[TeoZ via cctalk]

Only somebody working for the NSA would bother trying to do that. Going from 
theory to practice can be VERY expensive and time consuming.


-Original Message- 
From: Ethan via cctalk

Sent: Monday, March 26, 2018 3:26 PM
To: Chuck Guzis ; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: R: PATA hard disks, anyone?


Certainly, but it's fruitless to use logic in cases such as these.
Chances are that someone once read the paper from the 1990s that said it
was possible to recover overwritten data from a drive using, IIRC, an
STM--at a rate of what was it? 1 kbit per hour?


AFAIK there has been a bounty out to recover data with a single wipe that
hasn't been collected. I thought it was all theory and never done in
practice?


--
: Ethan O'Toole


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 03/25/2018 07:32 PM, Guy N. via cctalk wrote:
> The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H
> cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin.  There's a big
> carton full of PATA hard disks.  Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB
> range, a few larger, a few smaller.
> 
> Anyone have any use for these?  You can have them for the cost of
> shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA.  They're going to be
> recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them.

I'm surprised that your sysadmin is allowing this to happen.  Many large
outfits have a policy of sending any hard disk, regardless of content to
the industrial shredders.

--Chuck

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 26 March 2018 at 19:34, Tomasz Rola via cctalk  wrote:
>
> I have heard good things of MHDD diagnostic/repair program in the
> context of low level format and generally checking health of spinning
> disks.

That's a new one on me.

I have occasionally used, and often recommend, DBAN -- Darik's Boot And Nuke.

https://dban.org/


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Tomasz Rola via cctalk]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2018 at 06:22:04AM -0700, Guy N. via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> I have to wipe the drives before I ship them -- my word of honor to the
> sysadmin.  I have probably a couple dozen done now that I can ship right
> away.  The rest will trickle out a little bit slower after that.
> 
> When I said "big carton" I meant it.  There are plenty for everyone.

I have heard good things of MHDD diagnostic/repair program in the
context of low level format and generally checking health of spinning
disks. Strangely, I have never had a chance to use it, so far. It
seems like there is freeware version, able to boot from CD?

HTH

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Guy N. via cctalk]

I've had more replies to this offer than I expected!  I'll make a
general reply here, and contact everyone who responded off-list.

I think the simplest and most cost-effective way to ship these is a USPS
Priority Mail flat rate box.

I have to wipe the drives before I ship them -- my word of honor to the
sysadmin.  I have probably a couple dozen done now that I can ship right
away.  The rest will trickle out a little bit slower after that.

When I said "big carton" I meant it.  There are plenty for everyone.

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

>> On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 9:32 PM, Guy N. via cctalk 
>> wrote:
>>
>> The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H
>> cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin.  There's a big
>> carton full of PATA hard disks.  Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB
>> range, a few larger, a few smaller.
>
> On 26 March 2018 at 05:29, Adrian Stoness via cctalk  
> wrote:
>
> those are the ibm server ones right?

No. PATA means parallel ATA, that is, EIDE. It covered all EIDE
versions, original 40-wire 16 MB/s and the later 80-wire 33, 66, 100,
& 133 MB/sec standards.

In theory it also embraces pre-*E* IDE, that is, IDE, the old
sub-540MB non-LBA IDE drives.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Re: PATA hard disks, anyone?

[Adrian Stoness via cctalk]

those are the ibm server ones right?


On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 9:32 PM, Guy N. via cctalk 
wrote:

> The new sysadmin at work is clearing out closets full of junk^H^H^H^H
> cool old stuff accumulated by the previous sysadmin.  There's a big
> carton full of PATA hard disks.  Most of them are in the 4.3 GB - 20 GB
> range, a few larger, a few smaller.
>
> Anyone have any use for these?  You can have them for the cost of
> shipping, or free for local pickup in Bothell, WA.  They're going to be
> recycled as scrap if I don't find a home for them.
>
>