- 2008-10-24 - Transcend 1.0" SSD
- Transcend offers
1.0" SSD
modules of 2-16GB for direct replacement of
Microdrives with a footprint of 40×30mm² and 35-pin ZIF connector.
- 2008-10-23 - Hitachi Microdrive 3K6 6GB
- I was able to get two
Hitachi 3K6 6GB Microdrives
with slightly different low-level formatting.
- 2008-08-24 - Two more Microdrives
- I was able to get two more Microdrives:
The
Hitachi 3K8 8GB Microdrive
and the
IBM 340MB Microdrive DSCM-10340 .
Actually, the DSCM was offered as DMDM model, but I decided to keep it,
instead of returning it.
In case you own a Microdrive (dead or alive), and have no more
use for it, please
contact me .
The most wanted items are the 0.85" Toshiba models.
The 4GB version is supposed to be used in the
Cowon iAudio 6 media player or Nokia N91 4GB mobile phone.
- 2008-08-15 - Samsung SpinPoint A1 with ZIF-ATA Adapter
- I finally got the ZIF-ATA to ATA adapter.
As expected, I was able to get
much better write results with the HU040HA.
The test results and graphs are included in the
Samsung A1 Page .
- 2008-07-27 - Microdrive Anatomy
- Some photos from the first test shooting with
an opened Seagate ST1 are available in the
Microdrive Anatomy
section.
- 2008-07-08 - Microdrive History
- The first version of the
Microdrive History
is available.
- 2008-07-07 - IBM and Hitachi Microdrives
- I finally found the two Microdrives and
added the respective pages with first photos
and some text:
IBM Microdrives and
Hitachi Microdrives .
- 2008-07-05 - Samsung SpinPoint A1 HU035HA
- I could not resist and ordered the 30GB verision
of the LaCie little disk. I was suprised to find the
HU035HA inside, the model with 512 bytes per sector.
This means that the disk does not suffer from
misaligned read/write, and has a much cleaner
write diagram, see
Samsung A1 HU035HA .
More information will be added soon.
- 2008-06-29 - More 1" Information
-
- 2008-06-26 - Samsung SpinPoint A1 HU040HA
- The external USB disk featuring the Samsung SpinPoint A1 HU040HA
arrived, and it was quite easy to disassemble the enclosure without
any damage.
The first version of the
Samsung 1.3" page
is available, more information and photos will be added step by step.
First quick tests showed a sustained read rate from about 22.5MB/s
down to about 12.5MB/s, and a sustained write rate
of at least 19MB/s in the fastest media zone. At least
for the 40GB models, I can't confirm any serious writing problems,
as other sources claim for the 30GB model.
- 2008-06-24 - Seagate and Cornice Drives
- As preparation for the Microdrive Special,
pages with photos of a
Seagate 1" 12GB ST612712DE
and an older
Cornice Storage Element 1.5GB
have been added.
The order with a device containing the latest Samsung 1.3" 40GB
drive is on its way. The transfer diagram will be added first,
after that will be deconstrucion time...
Devices with 3-4GB drives can be found at 12-15 Euro,
one of these will become a victim for disassembling the drive itself.
- 2008-06-23 - Starting a Microdrive Special
- Actually, the first version of this website was
a list of microdrives and 1.8" harddisks that
got seriously "out of bounds". With the
new Samsung 1.3" series with 30GB and 40GB, I decided to start a
Microdrive Special. I know that only the IBM and Hitachi
models are allowed to carry that name, but it has become
a common term for 1" harddisks.
To catch up with the previous models, I got myself a
12GB USB drive and ripped it the same evening.
It turned out to hold a
Seagate ST1.3 ST612712DE
with an average read/write rate of 7.95MB/s.
With SD cards of 16GB with 19.9MB/s read and 12.5MB/s write
and appropriate thumb-drive sized closed card readers,
it's obvious why manufacturers abandoned this product
line.
As a bonus, I added the strange transfer rate graph for the
1.5GB Cornice Storage Element .
- 2008-06-11 - Western Digital VelociRaptor
- Yesterday I could pick up my WD VelociRaptor. For a start,
I added three photos to the
VelociRaptor page.
I can't tell whether I can get the full speed of the
harddisk, my PC has no native SATA-II ports. Yesterday
I tried to update the BIOS of my SiI3132 based PCIe x1 SATA-II
card, but it acts a little strange now...
- 2008-05-30 - Tests with Five 2.5" SATA Harddisks
I had to get a harddisk for the
NEXTO eXtreme
and needed a few attempts until I found the ideal harddisk.
Here are the
Test Results .
The Toshiba MK1652GSX showed the best perfomance with the NEXTO eXtreme,
the Samsung HM320JI was the next best candidate.
These are the first "new" Graphs showing read (red) and
write (white) rates together with trendlines to show how the actual
rates compare to the polynomial average. Explanations will be
added later.
- 2007-06-15 - Splitting Up Pages
- The lists are constantly growing, and the disk categories
become more important. Therefore, the SAS/SCSI page
is now split up in 3.5" and 2.5" models,
the 3.5" and 2.5" ATA pages are split up in
SATA and PATA. In addition, sections for different
types and RPM models are added.
- 2007-06-13 - Catching Up, Once Again...
- This time it was not due to my lazyness, my daytime job
kept me too busy to care about harddisk news for about
three months. Most of the new models should be listed
now, the pages will be up to date in a few days.
- 2007-02-26 - WD5000AAKS Test Results
- The disk seems to have timing problems with SiI SATA host controllers,
so the first results using the SiI3114 of my PC were not good enough.
Switching to one of the ICH6R ports gave better results, but there is
still a lot of jitter. The fastest zone transfers at rates
between 79.5MB/s and 86MB/s with an average of 83MB/s. The slowest
media zone still has an average sustained data rate of 42.3MB/s.
For more details, see the results for the
WD5000AAKS.
- 2007-02-21 - WD5000AAKS
- I wanted to get the WD5000KS, but the shop only had the
WD5000AAKS, so I took that one. I could not find any official
information at the WD website, but first tests indicate that
the WD5000AAKS is a three-platter PMR model (3x166GB)
instead of four-platters LMR (4x125GB) for the WD5000KS.
More information will follow, right now my PC has no 2 1/4 hours idle
slot to run the test program, and the CardBus SATA adapter seems to be
maxed out in the fastest zone.
- 2007-02-19 - Details for previous Hitachi Deskstar models
- The details for the
Hitachi Deskstar 7K500-500 HDS725050KLA360
are available, as well as the graph for the older
Hitachi Deskstar 7K400-400 HDS724040KLSA80.
These harddisks show that it is possible to get uninterrupted
sustained data rate.
- 2007-02-12 - Details for the Samsung HD400LD
- The
Samsung Spinpoint T33 HD400LD
does not show a clean graph, either. This time there seems to be
an additional influence by the timing between disk and host controller,
so there are more tests necessary. For first details, see the
Analysis of the Test Results.
In the meantime, I did a quick test with the "a little older"
Hitachi HDS725050KLA360.
The disk shows 25 distinct media zones from 62MB/s down to 29MB/s
without any cause for complaints.
Full details will follow, a complete test run takes 3 hours, and I
have to find enough idle time. But now I know for sure: My
next large 3.5" harddisk will be a Hitachi. Not the
fastest, not the cheapest, but the Hitachi folks seem to know what
they are doing!
I also have a
Maxtor DiamondMax 11 6H500R0 PATA disk where I did not take
the "official" test results yet, but can't remember why...
- 2007-02-09 - A New Page: The Harddisk Calculator
- After analyzing the test data of the Samsung HD501LJ, I decided that
it's time to make some calculations easier. The
Harddisk Calculator currently
offers three calculations: The sustained data rate, the impact
of seek time and latency on reading small and/or fragmented files,
and the idle calculation used in the analysis.
The most impressive example is calculating the data rate
for a 10,000RPM 75MB/s harddisk with 4ms average seek
when reading 100 files of 0.1MB. And then trying to improve
the resulting data rate by doubling the sustained data rate
using RAID-0 (striping).
- 2007-02-07 - Details for the Samsung HD501LJ and HM160JC
- I added the graph for the
Samsung Spinpoint T166 HD501LJ
together with the
Analysis of the Test Results.
I was able to get the
Samsung Spinpoint M80 HM160JC
working on the PCs Ultra-ATA controller, so I updated the data and added the
media zone detail and the resulting average data rate.
- 2007-02-02 - Graphs for the 2.5" Models added
- I added the graph for the new
Samsung Spinpoint M80 HM160JC
and also for the other 2.5" models, especially the
Hitachi Travelstar 7K100-100 HTS721010G9AT00
and
Hitachi Travelstar 5K160-160 HTS541616J9AT00.
- 2007-01-30 - New Test Data
- I had to get some new harddisks, the test data will be added
step by step. First candidates are the
Fujitsu MAX3073NP
(73GB 15,000RPM SCSI) and the
Western Digital WD Raptor WD1500ADFD
(150GB 10,000RPM SATA).
- 2007-01-24 - Update done
- Most of the work is done, I only have to double-check the values.
- 2007-01-17 - Catching up... once again!
- Well, time flies. But I have plans to update the lists once again.
It's not as bad as it could be after a seven months break.
- 2006-06-12 - Almost Done
- Most of the work is done. Some new columns have been added, but
certain values are not contained in the old data. Some manufacturers
only give very brief information, so there will be some gaps
even if my part of the work is completed.
- 2006-06-06 - Individual Tables
- Due to the constantly increasing size, the table with the technical
data has been split up:
SAS/SCSI ·
3.5" ·
2.5" ·
1.8" ·
1"
- 2006-05-24 - Catching up...
- PMR and RoHS caused some delays in development and I did not watch
closely and suddenly lost track. After such a long break, I had a hard
time catching up with the development that was going on.
The list is not fully up to date, but it's good enough for now.
I also have plans for splitting up the list into SCSI/SAS,
3.5", 2.5" and the rest.
- 2005-10-10 - The Toshiba 0.85" Drives Finally Got A Name
- The latest harddisk overview shows the model numbers
MK2001MTN and MK4001MTD for the 0.85" harddisks. According
to the usual naming conventions, the first two digits indicate
the capacity of 2.0GB and 4.0GB, the last two digits indicate
the generation "01". The final letter seems to indicate the normal/double
capacity version.
- 2005-10-07 - More Information about "Mikey" and "Slim 1.8 Inch"
- In the meantime, there are datasheets available that match the announced
"Mikey" and "Slim 1.8 Inch" disks. The datasheet for the Microdrive
3k8 family mentions three different interfaces, but no word about a
CF compatible version.
- 2005-09-29 - Performance Graph for the ST3400832AS
- I added the performance Graph for the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB S-ATA
and split up the Test Data page.
- 2005-09-27 - Performance Graphs
- Actually, I wanted to prepare a new release of this site quietly. But since
the comparison between the WD800GD and the WD740GD might be of special interest,
I quickly added those two graphs while I am in the middle of the transition phase.
The final version of the Test Data layout will be split up by form factor,
show graphs for all disks where appropriate data is available, and the
Media Zone Details will have a more sophisticated number formatting.
- 2005-09-23 - Surprise! WD800GD
- I got a new PC at work with the WD Raptor, and I could not resist taking
the transfer rate data first. I noticed that the total average data rate was
below that of my WD Raptor at home, so I took a closer look. The diagrams
were different, and after adjusting the scale I noticed that the "new"
Raptor had 13 instead of 11 media zones. Then I remembered that I noticed
the 80GB harddisk in the configuration data, and at that time was wondering that they
"generously rounded up" the 74GB. Step by step I realized, what was going on here.
- 2005-09-22 - New Test Data
- I added the test data for the Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 400GB ST3400832AS
and the Hitachi Travelstar C4K60-60 HTC426060G9AT00. I did not realize
that my last update was 4 weeks ago. This means that I most likely missed
some announcements...
As a next step I am preparing the transfer diagrams in order to include
them on the Test Data page, so stay tuned.
- 2005-08-25 - Summer Holidays Are Over
- It looks like the summer holidays are over now, because most manufacturers have some news.
New 2.5" models announced: Fujitsu MHV2160BT 160GB,
Hitachi Travelstar 4K120-120 HTS421212H9AT00 120GB,
Toshiba MK1233GAS HDD2A05, all of them 4200RPM models. Toshiba also
released two ruggedized "Automotive" harddisks, MK3029GAC and MK3029GACE,
mainly with extended operational temperature range.
The really exciting news came from Toshiba, who started shipping the first
PMR (perpendicular magnetic recording) harddisk 2005-08-16, the 40GB 1.8"
MK4007GAL HDD1622. The 80GB model MK8007GAH HDD1584 will follow later this year.
This explains why the recently announced 1.8" CE harddisks had generation
number 8 in their product code: While other companies were busy making hilarious
promotion cartoons, Toshiba just built the harddisks without big introduction.
- 2005-08-09 - Cornice and GS-Magicstor News
- Cornice announced the new 4.0GB version of their popular Storage Element
series 2005-07-18. As usual, there are not many technical details given,
except the statement that there is only one side of the platter used.
This explains the reduced height, so the 3GB is most likely a single-sided
disk, too.
I haven't been watching the GS Magicstor site for a while, so I
was surprised to see that there were quite a lot changes. It looks
like they dropped the idea about USB versions, reduced the 4.4GB
models to 4.0GB and added a 3.3GB CE model.
However, the material does not look very convincing: The PDF brochures
show a creation date 2004-12-24 and last modified 2004-12-27 and
show slightly different data than the HTML datasheets.
- 2005-08-04 - Toshiba MK4006GAH Test Results
- The test result for the Toshiba MK4006GAH HDD1564 is available now.
This harddisk is not just a MK6006GAH clipped to 40GB, it is formatted
at lower density. This means that the MK4006GAH is not as fast as the
MK6006GAH, but it is still faster than the MK4004GAH.
- 2005-06-20 - Maxtor News
- On the 6th of June, Maxtor announced new capacities of up to 500GB
for the MaXLine and DiamondMax series. The disks will be available for Q3/2005.
This will be the third company joining the "Half-Tera" club.
- 2005-06-18 - Toshiba News
- On the 9th of June, Toshiba announced a new series of 1.8" harddisks.
There is nothing special regarding the capacity, only size and weight are
slightly reduced, mostly by using a new ZIF connector.
- 2005-06-15 - Seagate News
- On the 8th of June, Seagate announced the ST1 with 4GB and 8GB,
the Barracuda 7200.9 with up to 500GB
and the Momentus 5400.3 with up to 160GB.
Please note that the 160GB Momentus 5400.3 will require
48bit LBA, so the disk might not work in older devices.
- 2005-05-30 - News Page
- This news page was added and set as start page. Hopefully, you still find the
page with the Technical Data.
- 2005-05-25 - Manufacturers and Product Lines
- An overview showing the
major harddisk manufactuers and their
product lines was added.
- 2005-05-23 - New Layout
- In preparation for new pages, the layout was changed from linked pages to
a proper frame layout with menu.