Released in Q1 1997, the M2724TAM was the largest drive Fujitsu made using this HDA-design, being the second iteration after the M2714TAM. Several other drives share this general design, capping out with 2 platters and 4 heads with this model.
A rather nice looking design, when fully black-cased 2.5″ drives became much less commonplace. These certainly stand out among Fujitsu’s rather bland silver 2.5″ drives from the same period.
Drive Attributes ------------------------------------- Fujitsu M2724TAM ------------------------------------- Capacity 1632MB Mfc Date 1997-08 Format 2.5" Height 12.5mm Interface PATA Platters 2 Heads 4 RPM 4000 -------------------------------------
Fitting 2 platters in a 12.5mm height drive was quite the impressive feat, but this drive isn’t the inception of such amazing density. Obviously, this pales in comparison to drives manufacturered today. This drive was one of Fujitsu’s first to demonstrate early SMART capabilities.
The label follows the usual layout of all Fujitsu’s from the time, they always did have quite the nice structure. These drives were only manufactured in Thailand and Japan, as opposed to Fujitsu’s factory in the Philippines seemingly having a much higher emphasis on 3.5″ drives at the time. Although, it’s not like the factory in Thailand didn’t also produce many 3.5″ drives throughout the 90’s, with the Japanese factory having a much lower general output overall.
Coming in at 12.5mm, these drives are great for practically any laptop made through the late 90’s, as opposed to much thicker drives which often present compatability issues.
Like practically any 2.5″ drive made after the mid-90’s, all IC’s and logic involved are present on the internal-facing side of the PCB. The motor manufacturer is clear as being Nidec, but to look closer the PCB requires removal. It’s held on with 5 screws, alongside a header connecting the PCB to the HDA interface.
Apparently, Hitachi Chemical manufactured the PCB, based on their logo being present on the back of the board alongside the HCL marking. Neat.
Removing the PCB presents the drives underside. The interfacing header between the drive and the PCB is visible on the bottom side, alongside the pressure-mount motor interface header in the centre.
The main controller IC is manufactured by Fujitsu, unsurprisingly. There’s some flash memory next to it, made by Atmel. The DRAM is manufactured by Sharp, being the model LH61664AK-60 IC. Feel free to dive in to your hearts content!
As mentioned earlier, these drives demonstrate some very early SMART data. Fortunately, this drive is in perfect condition (confirmed with a seperate surface scan). It’s worth mentioning the POC/POH count is entirely bogus, although that might be fairly obvious. The parameter data itself reads it as 393 hours, which I suppose could technically be possible. (edit: apparently attribute 09 is measured in seconds, therefore the power on time is also completely false)
These drives had quite a few niche use-cases. For example, it’s one of the drives Yamaha recommended for use in their PSR-8000, a rather curious MIDI keyboard from the time. The one featured here was inside a Sharp laptop from Japan at some point (based on the installation of a Sharp OEM copy of Windows 95 OSR2).
By the time this drive was made, their market position was far less glamorous. For example, the MHA2032AT, released in mid-1997, sported a whopping 3 platters, 6 heads and a capacity of 3.2GB. Improvements all round.
Fujitsu quietly retired these drives in early 1998.
If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here:
References:
[1] Fujitsu Storage Products (1997) – 2.5-inch magnetic disk drives M2723T/M2724T, acquired from: http://files.mpoli.fi/unpacked/hardware/hdd/fujitsu/fujspecs.zip/em272x.html