hard drive history

Photo: Red Hill.

Fujitsu M2611T

Fujitsu hard drives of the early nineties were superb, possibly the best quality storage money could buy. Nothing else quite managed that trademark milled-from-the-solid-metal feeling. In the hand, these drives exuded a sense of strength and dependability, and that is just what they delivered.

I remember dropping one of these from waist height onto a concrete floor once. It landed on the corner and hit hard enough to bend the metal — as you can see from the photograph that is a serious blow. To my amazement when I plugged it in again, it just worked as if nothing at all had happened. Obviously it was unsaleable, so it hung around the workshop being used for odds and ends for years afterwards.

The 40MB Fujitsus were uncommon but by no means rare in the early nineties. I have no idea where they came from (in the sense of who was buying them and fitting them to new PCs) but assume that they were expensive — they certainly should have been as their performance was excellent and their build quality outstanding.

Illustration: 45MB Fujitsu M2611T (top) with a 105MB M2617T. The M2611T was manufactured in June 1991, the larger drive in May 1993. Notice the rubber shock mounting system, and compare the overall build with the Lapine Titan of five years before.