{"id":2445,"date":"2023-07-11T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-07-11T10:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bananahdd.nl\/?p=2445"},"modified":"2023-07-11T12:29:13","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T10:29:13","slug":"toshiba-mk2326fc-340mb-1993","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bananahdd.nl\/index.php\/2023\/07\/11\/toshiba-mk2326fc-340mb-1993\/","title":{"rendered":"Toshiba MK2326FC 340MB (1993)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MK2326FC would release in early 1993, being Toshiba’s first three-platter 2.5″ drive. This drive was firmly Toshiba’s highest-end offering for the period, certainly carrying a high price tag to boot. As a result, this drive was out of reach for many, but 30 years later this isn’t as much the case anymore.<\/p>\n

With Toshiba’s 2.5″ unit development at the time, they provide yet another impressive feat of computing history.<\/p>\n

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Three-platters.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
  Drive Attributes<\/strong><\/em>\r\n  -------------------------------------\r\n  Toshiba MK2326FC\r\n  -------------------------------------\r\n  Capacity      340MB\r\n  Mfc Date      1993-10\r\n  Format        2.5\"\r\n  Height        19mm\r\n  Interface     PATA\r\n  Platters      3\r\n  Heads         6\r\n  Cache         128KB\r\n  RPM           4200\r\n  Origin        Japan (TDSC, Tokyo)\r\n  -------------------------------------<\/pre>\n
Continuing with their glass-platter medium iterations in conjuction with Hoya & Yamaha Industries, Toshiba would achieve a 340MB drive, sporting roughly 113MB per-platter densities. The same 19mm base remained from the MK2224FC, being Toshiba’s previous two-platter model sharing the same HDA.<\/p>\n
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The labels.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Labels remain the same as with all 2.5″ Toshiba’s of 1993, with this drive being produced at their manufacturing plant in Tokyo in October 1993.<\/p>\n
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The rear.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The rear of this drive features a neat piece of insulating material, particularly helping to prevent IC damage as is with the case on this drive.<\/p>\n
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The base.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Here we can see Toshiba using Nidec as their spindle motor supplier once again.<\/p>\n
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The PCB.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The PCB design on this drive is similar to previous iterations, although it uses a few more advanced IC’s instead. Western Digital’s interface IC is gone, being replaced with an Adaptec unit. Unfortunately, this is another unit suffering from capacitor leakage issues<\/a>. Fortunately, this example hasn’t succumbed to any damage yet, but the capacitor must be imminently replaced.<\/p>\n
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Performance metrics.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
This unit sadly has quite a few bad & slow sectors, making it a difficult drive to format past 93%. Nonetheless, the drive is still working and has continued to demonstrate it’s still reliable enough to use in an old machine, under certain conditions. Toshiba’s 2.5″ models in general from this era are quite hardy.<\/p>\n
Toshiba created yet another beast with this three-platter unit, still holding up way past its expiry date. Time will only tell if old Toshiba’s continue to hold up as well as they currently do.<\/p>\n
If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here:<\/p>\n