{"id":2671,"date":"2023-04-28T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bananahdd.nl\/?p=2671"},"modified":"2023-04-28T12:02:29","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T10:02:29","slug":"samsung-wn310820a-1-08gb-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bananahdd.nl\/index.php\/2023\/04\/28\/samsung-wn310820a-1-08gb-1997\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung WN310820A 1.08GB (1997)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Samsung Winner series would provide a much-needed revitalisation of Samsung’s hard drive division, past a time where issues never seemed to end. Fortunately, releasing in 1996, the Winner-2 project delivers on a much more optimistic reality.<\/p>\n

Certainly, these would prove to be much more reliable drives than their ancestors.<\/p>\n

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Winner-2.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
  Drive Attributes<\/strong><\/em>\r\n  -------------------------------------\r\n  Samsung WN310820A\r\n  -------------------------------------\r\n  Capacity      1080MB\r\n  Mfc Date      1997-04\r\n  Format        3.5\"\r\n  Interface     PATA\r\n  Platters      1\r\n  Heads         2\r\n  Cache         128KB\r\n  RPM           4500\r\n  Protocol      Fast ATA-2\/E-IDE\r\n  Origin        Korea (SEC)\r\n  -------------------------------------<\/pre>\n
Samsung managed to offer a 1GB per-platter architecture here, so this model only utilises a single platter. Spindle motor RPM has been raised to a cool 4,500, certainly a helpful contribution to performance for these compared to 3,600 RPM iterations of days past.<\/p>\n
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The labels.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Samsung continued to use a similar format with their labels from several years prior. This drive was manufactured in Korea, much like any other Samsung from the period.<\/p>\n
This particular drive was built in April 1997.<\/p>\n
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The rear.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Winner series as a whole would serve as the basis for many future density & mechanical refreshes, which explains why the rear side of one of these seems so familiar. We’ll go over the PCB in more detail below.<\/p>\n
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The PCB.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Clearly stating “Winner Rev A2” continues with the notation that Samsung were always very good at labelling drives with their platform names. Concerning logic, it’s reasonably condensed. Samsung utilised a socketed EPROM, like with proceeding Apollo drives. Adaptec provide the interface controller IC, with 128KB of buffer memory supplied by Samsung themselves.<\/p>\n
The microcontroller is also an Adaptec unit, sitting next to Samsung provided spindle motor controller. As will be seen below, Samsung didn’t supply the spindle motor itself for this one.<\/p>\n
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Under the PCB.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Rotting foam is a continued tragedy of old drives such as this. Fortunately, it doesn’t cause any issues in this case.<\/p>\n
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Nidec.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Nidec supplied the spindle motor for this unit. Samsung utilised a mixture of spindle motor vendors for this line of drives, myself having seen Samsung, PM DM-T & Nidec as potential options.<\/p>\n
Samsung departed from the spindle motor market in 1999, in a competitive market where their share of sales was significantly lower than offerings from manufacturers such as Nidec. [1]<\/p>\n
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Performance metrics.<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
These drives certainly aren’t bottom of the barrel performers, alongside being incredibly loud in person. Reliability seems to be much improved compared to earlier Apollo revisions, although old drives can never tell the full story. With this one turning 26 years old in the month this post releases, it fortunately continues to serve its purpose in perfect health.<\/p>\n
Samsung WN310820A – Product Datasheet (.pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n
If you missed the video I made on this drive, you can find it here:<\/p>\n