Hard Drive Sounds: Seagate ST-251N
26Manufacturer: Seagate
Model: ST-251N
Date of manufacture: Unknown
Device name: SEAGATE ST251N
Capacity: 40 MB
Rotational speed: 3600 RPM
Interface: 50-pin parallel SCSI
Form factor: Half-height, 5.25-inch
Actuator: Stepper motor
Fully-functional? Yup!
Origin: Unknown (garage sale find)
Current home: None, yet.
This drive was found in a rather large Maxtor-branded box at an estate sale in the Dallas area, if I'm not mistaken. At first, it wouldn't function at all on any computer, but it turns out it just desperately needed a low-level format. The ST-251N was the SCSI version of its very popular brothers, the MFM ST-251-0 and ST251-1, and the RLL ST-277R. I'm not sure what kind of computer you'd have to get to end up with a SCSI version, but most PCs just had the MFM or RLL drives as they were considerably more affordable and performed similarly.
That said, the ST-251N does sound a bit different from its non-SCSI brethren, especially in its seek test. Here are a couple videos of the other drives:
ST-251-1: https://youtu.be/HCHXG_U_fFY
ST-277R: https://youtu.be/Fh6sd-kdFFg
Read the history of the Seagate ST-251: https://www.redhill.net.au/d/5.php
Configuration used:
Dell Dimension 5150 from around 2005 probably. Specs aren't important but it's a Pentium 4 HT 3.0 GHz with 1 gig of RAM.
Adaptec AHA-2930CU PCI SCSI interface
FreeDOS 1.2 from a floppy disk running the HDMotion software.