By the early-2000’s, Fujitsu had quite the ongoing presence in the 3.5″ drive market. Unfortunately, it would soon come to an end in 2001, but this drive demonstrates some of Fujitsu’s last drives in the space when concerning contact start-stop consumer models.
The XV10 is one of many series Fujitsu had with this particular HDA design, but this one is the lowest-end model of the bunch.
Drive Attributes ---------------------------------------- Fujitsu XV10 MPF3102AT ---------------------------------------- Capacity 10.24GB Mfc Date 2000-07 Format 3.5" Interface PATA Platters 1 Heads 2 Cache 512KB RPM 5400 Origin Thailand (FTC) Codename Picobird-15 ----------------------------------------
Desktop XV10 models were available in three capacities, the MPF3102AT (as above), the MPF3153AT (15.36GB, 2 platters, 3 heads) and the MPF3204AT (20.48GB, 2 platters, 4 heads). This equates to a per-platter density of 10.24GB, with a per-surface density of 5.12GB.
These came with a three-year warranty at the time, which, alongside being relatively inexpensive drives comparatively, made them to be a good value proposition.
Being made in Thailand, this one features the styled logo Fujitsu coined back in the late 80’s. Drives from the Philippines seemingly stuck with the older-style non-logo type with all IDE drive production, which is fairly strange in retrospect. It’s much like Toshiba, who also used their “umbrella-style” logo on drives, long past its replacement.
This drive is from mid-2000, which is close enough to when these were announced, which was a few months earlier.
These feature Fujitsu’s iconic long PCB’s, utilising a fairly bizarre amount of real estate.
The boards on these are fairly interesting, notably due to the absolutely monstrous size of the main controller IC from Cirrus Logic. OKI is the 512kb buffer RAM supplier, who were a favourite for most 3.5″ Fujitsu drives throughout the late-90’s to early 2000’s.
Notably, Fujitsu seemed to neglect the country of manufacture on their PCB designs, even if the silkscreen was present. A strange move indeed.
These drives have some pretty nice SMART attributes for their age, this one showing how little it has been used.
These can often be a mixed bag in terms of reliability, often having logic faults or random read failures, but this one is in good shape after 20 years of low use. Fujitsu faced a pretty hefty lawsuit from the likes of HP and Gateway, focusing on the unreliability of MPG3 series and MPF3 series drives. [1] Clearly, this one might not have the best logic longevity, but perhaps it will defy all odds.
Fujitsu’s last few years of consumer 3.5″ drive production until the late 2000’s were fairly unremarkable, but it’s always good to see one in action over two decades later.
Specifications manual:
Fujitsu XV10 Family Specifications Manual (pdf)
If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here:
References:
[1] ComputerWorld (2003), Tom Krazit, IDG News Service | 22 October 2003 9:00 CET, “Fujitsu hard disk lawsuit settlement proposed”, https://www.computerworld.com/article/2572338/fujitsu-hard-disk-lawsuit-settlement-proposed.html