• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Will mechanical SATA drives ever be valuable?

kerr

kerr

Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2021
Messages
34
Location
Melbourne, Australia
Apologies if this has already been asked - I did try the search.

I have a bunch of SATA/SAS spinning rust drives that I can barely even give away. Seems they're at the bottom of the nostalgia curve.

Wondering what everyone thinks - SATA and mechanical drives are on the way out - I'm guessing even 3.5" drives are in less demand these days.

On the other hand, I'm seeing MFM drives command high prices.

Thoughts?
 
MFM/ST506 drives command higher prices because there are so few of them that have survived in working condition--and there are no simple ways to substitute later technology for them.

Given the number of SATA drives out there, and that there are SATA-interface SSDs, I don't think that the situations are quite analogous.
 
The question is if systems using SATA only will ever become valuable retro systems in the future. I doubt that.

Also, chances that any spinning SATA drive will last as long as MFM/RLL drives are also minimal due to the much more error-prone technology used (RoHS, insane bit-density, pre-recorded tracking that will fade over time etc.).

And, of course, you can just use an SSD.
 
MFM drives couldn't be given away in the early 90s. SATA drives might gain in value about 5 years after SATA stops being the primary storage interface.
 
I think so, more so for IDE. Nobody will get rich but drives will command some money. Look at what people pay for a SCSI 50 pin drive now.

Everything SATA made now is mostly for NAS systems. Some people are still buying SATA SSD for older desktop machine and laptops but new systems have NVMe drives.

Look at the billions of IDE drives that were made, where are most of them now? I have been stocking up on laptop IDE and SATA drives as people are dumping them on ebay so my old laptops will function way into the future. Have a few large stacks of IDE and SATA desktop drives as well.

The real question is how large the hobby will grow over time and how many people will want stock systems with original drives or at least the correct type of HD.
 
I keep a stock of SATA drives simply because there are niche situations where the host hardware requires caddies or special-fit bays where fitting 2.5" or small SSD's require adapter plates I CBA'd to pay $15 each for...or four hours at a time to 3D print. Two things that come to mind are the G5 and cheesegrater Mac Pros and USB RAID boxes/NAS servers like the Drobo.
I keep IDE drives around for the same reason, plus a few special case systems where either the hardware was super exotic (the HDD option for the Playstation 2....you know, the official versions for FFXI and PS2 Linux. Not the ones that are basically sold to let you pirate the hell out of the console, you schmuck) or the OEM label said it had a 20gb on the front and I'm putting a 20gb drive inside it for authenticity.
 
Unknown_K said:
Are CF drives being made anymore?
Click to expand...
Yes. The lowest capacity model Sandisk is making is 32 GB which might be an inconvenience for some older systems. Those should be available for a few more years since high end cameras using CF were still being made 5 years ago.
 
When you get tired of that, you can migrate to a SD-to-CF adapter. I've got one of those--seems to work okay. It will be a long time before we run out SD cards.

The thing about PATA/SATA etc. is that it's all basically SCSI commands, which makes migration a bit easier.
 
It will be a long time before we run out SD cards.
Click to expand...
Remember when we said that about CF cards? Hell, even for SATA SSD's we're already seeing the transition away to compact technologies like M2, which requires an adapter to let you use it on SATA.
Point is every time a storage technology hits the bottom of the bathtub curve, gets cheap in volume and an adapter is made, there will always be something newer that replaced it and you will endlessly chase what type of storage medium to adapt with. Pick a format and roll with it.
SD cards are a godawful technology to adapt to. They're slow. Their protocol is proprietary and the only reason people put up with them is because the adapters are typically used in machines where you'll never saturate the bus, but as soon as you try them (or even SF cards) in high performance systems you can immediately tell the shortcomings and proper adapters which don't suck are incredibly expensive in comparison, which brings me to the other thing...

The thing about PATA/SATA etc. is that it's all basically SCSI commands, which makes migration a bit easier.
Click to expand...
ACARD called, they said "lol".
 
Compared to low performance adapters like the SCSI2SD and the AztecMonster, ACARD's SCSI to PATA adapters are fast but famously expensive.
Their SCSI to SATA adapters are even more expensive. Worse yet is they sell models exclusively for CD drives only without hacky reflashing.
They are not priced for the hobbyist markets.
 
Slow adapters are fine if you need a SCSI drive for a slow as hell compact macs internal SCSI bus.

I have some ACARD SCSI to ATA adapters and they do seem to work OK but they sit on the shelf until my stock of drives run out.
 
I think ACARD discontinued all of their SCSI bridges. I bought a few about 10 years ago and they worked fine. They were pricey but not "famously expensive." Now the only place to get them is scalpers on ebay.
 
NeXT said:
SD cards are a godawful technology to adapt to. They're slow. Their protocol is proprietary and the only reason people put up with them is because the adapters are typically used in machines where you'll never saturate the bus, but as soon as you try them (or even SF cards) in high performance systems you can immediately tell the shortcomings
Click to expand...

Licensing the "full" SD protocol is trivially cheap (any commercial adapter IC is going to be using it) and you can drive them with SPI at a couple MB/sec, which is adequate for old-tymey/embedded/hobby applications, so unless you actually are for some reason trying to use a mid-90's or later "thing" in some actual production role an SD adapter will work just fine. I mean, it's fine if it's not your thing, but don't think most people find the level of performance they're at a problem.

For mid-90's or later applications, sure, buy a PATA to SATA (or mSATA, or M2) adapter instead and use a "real" SD, they also mostly work fine. If you prefer spinning disks that's also fine, there's probably enough stock lying around to last for a while, but I do echo Timo's opinion that it's unlikely modern drives are going to last as long as the old MFM bricks... which have been dropping like flies for the last decade plus. If nothing else the embedded servo info is going to fade eventually.
 
NeXT said:
Compared to low performance adapters like the SCSI2SD and the AztecMonster, ACARD's SCSI to PATA adapters are fast but famously expensive.
Click to expand...
I suspect that you misunderstood my comment about SCSI compatibility. What I meant was SCSI compatibility at the command set level, not at the physical interface level.

You can see this by looking at, for example, the way Linux treats SATA, and SD devices--they're all under the "scsi" heading. If you've ever written a device driver using SDIO, the command set is almost the SCSI hard drive set verbatim. Just the physical layer is different. Same situation obtains for ATAPI devices--basically SCSI in a wrapper.

Old ST506-interface drives are a whole different world.
 
Don't lose sight of the XT-IDE way back in '08/'09. There were no 8-bit IDE controller to had, at least at the price level that the average enthusiast could afford. The XT-IDE let me retire an old and creaky ST-225. I don't care if it's slow as the 1000SX isn't going to win any races. I think that with the advent of the XT-IDE, vintage, or near vintage collectors got a shot of adrenalin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top