Old old moany groany hard drives

[HemaZev]

Ok so the Miniscribe 3425 and 8425 sound like they have the exact same startup test, only the 8425's is faster bcuz of a smaller platter. Listen closely. They both have the heads sweeping slowly across the drive then quickly back.

[Tiscando]

Sounds like the first and second one has the same sounding ball bearing as the one on my VCR multi-part video head. This bearing has a distinctive major-6th mid-tone grumble (relative to the spin vibration) at speed, which I can hear just a little bit on the first one, but it is what makes half of the quiet grumbly noise made by the second one. Interesting-sounding vintage hard drives here, well done!

[Fastopen]

I love those old steppers spining up, frequently stepper motors of 400 step degree resolution and as far as i can remember using half step controlling..

[GimmeSomeRockNRoll]

The 2 3.5" ones, in SCSI form, are the hard drives that are used in the Macintosh SE. I can tell by the sound they make. I never knew that you could see the bottom edge of the actuator arm in action! SWEET!

[Lachlant1984]

I should know this, but what does MFM stand for? Those hard disks certainly make a lot of noise, the last 2 are rather quick at spinning up and slowing down.

[vwestlife]

MFM stands for Modified Frequency Modulation. It's the method by which the data is written as magnetic fields to the hard drive platters.

[captain150]

@Lachlant1984

The last two drives are 3.5 inches wide, as opposed to the first 2 which are 5.25 inches wide. The narrower drives have smaller platters, which can spin up faster.

[bensonak47]

those harddrives are so loud because they spend at a lower rpm therefore more vibrations escape, higher rpm's will spin fast enough that vibrations are mininal and it's also designed better

[captain150]

Another reason is due to new bearings. New drives use fluid dynamic bearings, which are far quieter than ball bearings which these drives used. Even 7200rpm drives up to 2002 or so were quite loud.

[coondogtheman1234]

the third one at 1:47 sounds like a motorcycle or weed whacker engine shutting down when the power is turned off lol. same with the 4th one but not as much. My bro had an old computer with DOS only and it had this HUGE hard drive im gonna see if I can find it. it is LOUD when its running.

[ThisIs2009]

some of those drives sounded like today's drives but LOUDER!

[retrochad]

I can remember the first time I saw a hard drive in a computer...we had an original Compaq portable which originally had 2 floppy drives but then my dad had a 10MB full-height hard drive installed in it. It sounded sort of like the first one you showed but maybe a little louder. This was probably about 1987 or 1988.

[vwestlife]

I used a full-height 5¼" hard drive in the late '90s and early 2000s, except it was a 1.2 gigabyte SCSI drive! I also have a 12-gigabyte 5¼" Quantum Bigfoot EIDE hard drive, although it is only 1-inch height (less than half height).

[wilkes85]

That third one sounds like my laptop LOL

[weasel2htm]

That first esp. almost sounds like a siren winding up.

[ess1898]

I miss my old full height 20MB MFM hard drive. the sounds it made were awesome. and for an old DOS computer in the 90s 20MB was plenty of space. (I did eventually upgrade to a 40MB MFM drive and an external bernuli box with twin 10MB cartirdges)

[raymondleeleggs]

20Mb won't even store a music CD LMAO I actually like WHURRRRRRRRR Noise though

[spatsbear2]

I love those sounds, especially the first one!!!

[Mrtechguy94]

I love the sound of these old hard drives. Modern hard drives are just too quiet.

[maskedmillionaire]

sounds like a boat or a weedeater

[ReviewTechUSA]

God I feel like its 1988 when i hear that noise....286 IBM compatible PC's FTW!!!

[linuxlove4004]

i have an ST-506 in my PS/2 system. 20MB and 3 1/2" flavor. I think the noise of these old hard drives adds a bit of charm to old systems :P

[MicrosoftWindowsGuy]

I'm sorry, but that is the best sound ever.

[CoolDudeClem]

Hearing those brings back memories of the early school computers.

[user12119]

My uncle has an old PC in his loft and the hard drive is louder than these, it sounds like an aircraft taking off.

[ManuelDR1969]

do you play team fortress 2

[LeodimeII]

I do, but I doubt this guy does. lol

[Jivemaster2005]

imho this high noise ruined the gaming experience on older pc's...plus the loud PSU fan

The game sfx and music got drowned in all the noice from the PC.

[vwestlife]

The Seagate is actually very quiet for its age. It just makes a low rumble, and vibrates the whole table the PC is on! It was the older 3½" drives that were the most annoying to me, as they gave off a shrieking whine.

[BungaEBiker]

My dad had a car that sounded like the third hard drive. LOL Newer hard drives are much quieter, especially the new solid state ones. no sound at all. very creepy at first.

[ThePhoneUpdate]

Nothin' beats a good hard drive noise... Unless it's the REALLY annoying read/write sound the Samsung one has in my new PC!

[rockybabyboy]

Sure remember that sound lol.

[Maxxarcade]

I remember that sound all too well. Especially the first one.

[Hostog]

That sound sent me right back to my classroom in 93, heard this sound every morning while i put the coffee on :D