The Hitachi DK212A-81 is 19mm height, 2.5″ hard disk drive, released in Q1 1995. Hitachi continued their emphasis on portable computing storage, where they were major producers of both mobile & enterprise hard drive models. The DK212A-81 is another such example of their prowess, however it isn’t all surprising that almost 30 years later that some may fall.
Looking within is always fun, which can be done on this rather upset example.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4000-scaled.jpg)
Drive Attributes ------------------------------------- Hitachi DK212A-81 ------------------------------------- Capacity 810MB Mfc Date 1995-04 (week 16) Format 2.5" Height 19mm Interface PATA Platters 4 Heads 8 Cache 64KB RPM 4500 Origin Japan (HCJ) -------------------------------------
This drive sports four platters, equating to an approximate platter density of 202.5MB.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/hitachi-dk212a.png)
Hitachi may win an award here for the most plain looking drive of all time. It’s a blank sheet, with a single label, being perfectly flat.
The label itself is pretty useless, aside from stating this drive was manufactured in Japan, prior to that of Hitachi’s full swing production cycle in the Philippines.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4003-scaled.jpg)
The rear is, yet again, quite plain. The PCB is flipped, which is nice to see, being quite standard at this point in time.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4007-scaled.jpg)
The base has nothing interesting going on, with the spindle motor vendor being hidden.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/dk212a-81-pcb.png)
The microcontroller on this unit is from Zilog, being a ROMless Z8 chip with an embedded DSP processor. Flash is supplied by ATmel, Hitachi for the 64KB of cache and Cirrus Logic for the interface adapter.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4008-scaled.jpg)
Four-platters in a neat little package.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4010-scaled.jpg)
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4012-scaled.jpg)
The preamp has no distinct vendor markings, which is somewhat of a shame.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4015-scaled.jpg)
Being a 2.5″ drive, the actuator assembly is very compact. There’s a small rubber strip on the right-hand side, but it shows no signs of deterioration on this particular unit.
![](https://bananahdd.nl/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/IMG_4011-scaled.jpg)
While this model refuses to read or write any sector present on its surface, an early-ish 2.5″ drive is a fun sight inside. Four or more platters is quite a treat!
If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here: