Conner Peripherals CP3360 360MB (1992)

The CP3360 is a beast from another time. Conner Peripherals were a well-known manufacturer for low-cost & simplistic drives, found in a myriad of OEM machines throughout the 90’s. However, the company didn’t always have a sole focus on the lower-end market, with drives like this being a stunning reminder of their capabilities.

With a striking red label once again, Conner produced quite a monster of a SCSI drive back in the early-90’s.

  Drive Attributes
  -------------------------------------
  Conner Peripherals CP3360
  -------------------------------------
  Capacity      360MB
  Mfc Date      1992
  Format        3.5" (40mm)
  Interface     SCSI (50-pin)
  Platters      4
  Heads         8
  Cache         256KB
  RPM           4500
  Origin        USA (CP)
  -------------------------------------

A four-platter Conner is something special, with this one delivering 360MB in full. A drive being made in the USA is quite unusual, particularly for Conner, but the company utilised this factory in its early years for drives like these, prior to their shift to affordability with amazingly quick entry into the Asian manufacturing space.

The base assembly of this drive is quite unusual, being that of Conner’s more unique design philosophy for the time. This was one of Conner’s higher-end offerings from the period, being shown with its fairly rugged construction as a whole.

The base of the drive isn’t very special, offering no interesting markings or engravings.

As perhaps expected for the time, the logic is more convoluted than drives of today.

There’s a couple socketed ROM chips, nestled between processing IC’s from both Motorola & STMicroelectronics.

The (huge!) 256KB of buffer memory is from Texas Instruments.

When concerning insulation material, the dotted foam on this drive is quite unique. It hasn’t held up too well, unfortunately (and well, expectedly).

Nothing special on the rear of the PCB either.

For the time, there were higher capacity products available. Conner’s positioning was like any other mid-range brand at the time, with this drive having been produced less than a year after their venture with Olivetti began.

A factory lost to time, Conner’s production facilities in the USA are often forgotten. While their introduction with drives produced in both China & Malaysia may have taken the spotlight, the CP3360 certainly collects a different atmosphere.

If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here:

References:

[1] InfoWorld (1993) 28th June 1993, 174 pages, Vol. 15, No. 26, ISSN 0199-6649, Published by InfoWorld Media Group, Inc., Acquired from: https://books.google.nl/books?id=PzsEAAAAMBAJ