The Hitachi DK329H-91WC is a 9.1GB SCSI hard drive, released in early 1999.
Hitachi’s days only a couple years before their acquisition of IBM’s hard drive division are a fascinating point of history to look back upon. Unfortunately, the unit in this post hasn’t lived to continue its story over two decades later.
Drive Attributes ------------------------------------- Hitachi DK329H-91WC ------------------------------------- Capacity 9.1GB Mfc Date 1999-03 Format 3.5" Interface SCSI (SCA) Platters 5 Heads 10 Cache 512KB RPM 7200 Protocol Ultra-2 SCSI Origin Philippines (HCP) -------------------------------------
This drive sports a whopping five platters, equating to an approximate density of 1.82GB per-platter. Hitachi also released a partnering 18GB model, sporting a crazy ten platters, with the DK319H-18XX (note: XX = differing SCSI type notation, e.g. W = wide, C = SCA, for known list please check this post).
Being before that of Hitachi’s restructuring into Hitachi Global Storage Technology (HGST) in 2003, this drive was produced in the Philippines under their originating Hitachi, Ltd.’s Data Storage Systems Division. This particular example was produced in March 1999.
The front is all one may expect from a pre-IBM Hitachi, offering little when concerning detailed drive specifications.
This drive utilises a standard SCA (Single Connector Attachment) SCSI connection method.
Much of the logic here utilises Hitachi IC’s, including the microcontroller, cache & spindle motor controller. This drive utilises a RISC instruction set architecture chip developed by Hitachi, known as the SuperH (or SH), with this model using a second generation SH2 chip (top right). The SH2 is limited to 16-bit instructions, where later chip iterations would utilise both 16 and 32-bit instruction sets.
The SCSI interface adapter is from QLogic, a vendor based in California which no longer exists, eventually being absorbed into Marvell after being acquired by Cavium in 2016 (where Cavium was acquired by Marvell in 2017).
An electrolytic capacitor stands boldly on this side, alongside a single flash memory chip from Fujitsu.
Here we see a fairly standard looking head-stack connection pin array, alongside a few screws. The spindle motor has no clear branding.
Now we go inside!
We’re greeted by a monstrous five platters, with a few interesting things of note already.
It’s a tightly packed drive, pushing engineering to its limits for the time.
The locking & stopper mechanism is quite fascinating on this drive, utilising a few magnetic restrictors. There’s no rubber to be seen, which is certainly a plus.
It’s simple and effective, being a loud assembly in general. The top magnet refused to budge no matter how much pressure was applied (no screws being present, I even broke a prying lever!), so this is as far as we can go for now.
Whilst being quite a magnificent drive, this one sadly has the click of death. In the current day, these late-90’s pre-IBM SCSI Hitachi drives are certainly very hard to find.
Concluding, while looking inside is a joy, it’s a shame that it cannot be demonstrated for the performance it surely once guaranteed. The internet may have to wait a long while until one can be heard in all of its glory, perhaps with an individual luckier than myself.
If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here: