With release in Q3 1999, the MPE3273AT serves as Fujitsu’s highest-end consumer drive in the MPE3x series, coming in at 27.3GB with a whopping four-platters. While not the champion of the era, their design simplicity is something to be admired. With Fujitsu struggling at the time, the MPE3x’s hold-up considerably better than their later offerings with the MPF3x and MPG3x line-ups suffering from heavy litigation.
This MPE3273AT is quite a nice unit.
Drive Attributes ------------------------------------- Fujitsu Desktop 27 XV MPE3273AT ------------------------------------- Capacity 27.3GB Mfc Date 2000-03 Format 3.5" Interface PATA Platters 4 Heads 8 Cache 2MB RPM 5400 Protocol Ultra-ATA/66 Origin Philippines (FCPP) Codename Picobird-14 -------------------------------------
This drive manages a density of 6.825GB per platter. Compared to lower-capacity models, cache was bumped up to 2MB instead of 512KB. These drives utilise GMR heads, a tradition that began for Fujitsu with the proceeding MPD3x series.
This unit was produced in the Philippines. Being from early 2000, 27.3GB was nothing to disregard, yet Fujitsu were certainly no capacity champions at the time.
As usual, their jumper labelling is excellent.
The usual Fujitsu L-shaped PCB is present. All connection types remain to use ribbon cables, with no pressure contact points being present.
The microcontroller is a native Fujitsu unit, with the 2MB of buffer memory being provided by Hyundai (now Hynix!). The spindle motor controller is supplied by Hitachi.
The spindle motor is unbranded, unfortunately, so it’s not clear who the exact manufacturer would be.
With only just over 3.6k hours, this one hasn’t had the most difficult life. Fortunately, it’s in perfect health which means it should be quite an excellent drive for an early XP-era machine, or anything of similar era.
Fujitsu would never again produce a consumer-grade four-platter 3.5″ drive past this model, where both the following MPF3x and MPG3x series capped out with two-platter configurations. This is, unfortunately, the very last of its kind from the company.
These old 3.5″ Fujitsu’s are often forgotten, but for such an interesting beast such as this, it’s worth checking out one of their drives in-person. They sound unique, that’s for sure!
Fujitsu Desktop 27 XV Series Product Manual (.pdf)
If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here: