Is there a Catweasel like device for hard disks?

[Chuck Guzis]

> Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:31:03 -0500
> From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net>

> I ran a perstor card with a pair of ST251 drives up until I got my first
> 540M ATA drive,  24/7,  for a few years,  and they proved quite reliable. 
> The bearing noise of those drives got to be a bit much by the time I shut
> them down,  though.

Was this the ARLL (2x MFM capacity) Perstor controller?  If that's 
the case, I'm doubly surprised.  On the first count that you got 
ST251s to perform reliably with it and, on the second count, that you 
didn't have to use ST251R drives.

I seem to recall that the difference between the ST251 and the ST251R 
was how individual specimens behaved on final QA.  They both started 
off as the same drive, but some performed better than others and so 
were labeled with the "R" designation.

I don't know if it was the bearing noise of the 251s that was more 
objectionable or the resonance from the copper spring clip at the end 
of the spindle.  On some drives, the spindle brake would fail leading 
to some really awful squealing noises from the brake pad.  My usual 
solution was to remove the culprit, whichever it was.

Cheers,
Chuck