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Ha ha ha onboard anything PCs of a sufficient vintage had so little logic on the HDD that you could swap out the MFM controller card in your PC for an RLL one

Ha ha ha onboard anything PCs of a sufficient vintage had so little logic on the HDD that you could swap out the MFM controller card in your PC for an RLL one and get 50% more storage. The modulation of the signal written to the disk was the job of the controller card, not the board on the HDD. Turn your 20MB HDD into a 30MB with a controller change and reformat? Mighty tempting.

JohnBooty 3y ago
Hmmmmmm. I think they had some onboard cache around the time of DOOM? Now you got me interested.... This 4GB Western Digital AC-14300 with mfr date of 1995 seems to have 512KB of cache? Not sure if these specs are reliable though. - https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/western-digital/AC-14300-4311MB-3-5-SL-ATA66-ULTR.html https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/western-digital... - https://www.ebay.com/itm/325794470911?hash=item4bdadd1bff:g:QukAAOSwnf1kd1fU https://www.ebay.com/itm/325794470911?hash=item4bdadd1bff:g:... This 250MB Samsung from 1993 has 64KB of cache: - https://www.directitsource.com/product-p/shd-3122a-ds2.htm https://www.directitsource.com/product-p/shd-3122a-ds2.htm - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-X2uYEx7tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-X2uYEx7tU This WD Caviar 280MB from 1992 seems to have 8KB of cache. - https://www.ebay.com/itm/154446527853 https://www.ebay.com/itm/154446527853 - https://www.priceblaze.com/WDAC280-WesternDigital-Hard-Drive https://www.priceblaze.com/WDAC280-WesternDigital-Hard-Drive This 40MB Maxtor from 1990 has 32KB of cache. - https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/maxtor/8051A-41MB-3-5-HH-IDE-AT.html https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/maxtor/8051A-41... So, I think any contemporary hard drive in those days would have some cache. Thanks for leading me down this nostalgic rabbit hole.

3 ms·

Ha ha ha onboard anything PCs of a sufficient vintage had so little logic on the HDD that you could swap out the MFM controller card in your PC for an RLL one

by deadlyllama 3y ago

JohnBooty 3y ago
Hmmmmmm. I think they had some onboard cache around the time of DOOM? Now you got me interested.... This 4GB Western Digital AC-14300 with mfr date of 1995 seems to have 512KB of cache? Not sure if these specs are reliable though. - https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/western-digital/AC-14300-4311MB-3-5-SL-ATA66-ULTR.html https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/western-digital... - https://www.ebay.com/itm/325794470911?hash=item4bdadd1bff:g:QukAAOSwnf1kd1fU https://www.ebay.com/itm/325794470911?hash=item4bdadd1bff:g:... This 250MB Samsung from 1993 has 64KB of cache: - https://www.directitsource.com/product-p/shd-3122a-ds2.htm https://www.directitsource.com/product-p/shd-3122a-ds2.htm - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-X2uYEx7tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-X2uYEx7tU This WD Caviar 280MB from 1992 seems to have 8KB of cache. - https://www.ebay.com/itm/154446527853 https://www.ebay.com/itm/154446527853 - https://www.priceblaze.com/WDAC280-WesternDigital-Hard-Drive https://www.priceblaze.com/WDAC280-WesternDigital-Hard-Drive This 40MB Maxtor from 1990 has 32KB of cache. - https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/maxtor/8051A-41MB-3-5-HH-IDE-AT.html https://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/maxtor/8051A-41... So, I think any contemporary hard drive in those days would have some cache. Thanks for leading me down this nostalgic rabbit hole.