Lord-Chaos Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 I own an ATARI Mega STE, bought in 1994, but it was pre-owned, it's a TOS 2.05 machine with 1.44MB drive, seems to be made in 1991. It could be 15 years old by now. Was my main "work-horse" for 10 years, I did write and print all the stuff with the STE, because it's MUCH more reliable than any Windows machine. It still has the original 48MB harddisk. But today, it's slowly getting unreliable. Had the first problems (files not found, drive not responding) in 2000, but reformatted the HD and the problem was solved. Two years ago, the third partition was destroyed due to some hardware error I think, but it's still working. It was no serious problem, no headcrash or something like that. How long will it continue to work? 15 years is old for an HD, I suppose. I like to use systems as long as possible. LC P.S. ATARI systems seem to be almost indestructible. My original 800 XL is 20 years old and still working. My old 1040 STE is 16years old and ok. I had a lot of problems with my Commodore systems - C64 mostly dead or dying power supplies , AMIGA - dying drives , CIA problems. I think "quality without the price" was true for ATARI computers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 How long will it continue to work? 15 years is old for an HD, I suppose. It can work another 15 years and even more. Hard disks don't have exactly a life-span. They have a MBF (Mean Time Between Failures). It might of course fail anytime, but there is no way to know. Good care certainly will improve the chances of extending the life time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krupkaj Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 that's true, hard to say how long the drive will work. Fortunately it possible to get SCSI drives cheap in theese days. What is more importatnt is backup of your data for case the drive failures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 The old drives probably last so long thanks to much lower speed, less strain on the bearings and less heat generation. Today's generic IDE drives are lucky to last 5 years before failing or at lest getting noisy and clicky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 The old drives probably last so long thanks to much lower speed, less strain on the bearings and less heat generation. Today's generic IDE drives are lucky to last 5 years before failing or at lest getting noisy and clicky. I know the SCSI driver that I use with my BBS has been very reliable. Its a 4 gig Seagate. It ran from about '95 through '99, then we took a 5 year break, then reopened last year. So its 11 years old, with about 6 years of continuous usage, and I mean continuous. If you've ever run a BBS, then you know just how much the hard drive gets thrashed, er, used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crash Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 Seagates are generally nice and reliable, but after 5 years, I would definitely recommend that anything of importance is backed up, and that you have a spare drive available. Once errors occur, and you can verify that the number of bad sectors on the drive is increasing, it can begin to cascade such that more and more of the drive fails in a shorter amount of time - or - you will will reach the dreaded day when the drive will cease to Boot or ID. Five years is the longest warranty around (Seagate) and I think that it coincides with their MTBF figures, to take that to heart. I just ordered Extendos and CD Writer so I can backup my hard disks to CDs, and bought a few spare drives on eBay. Keep in mind that the MSTE doesn't like drives above about 1gb, so they are getting scarce as time goes on. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 Seagates are generally nice and reliable, but after 5 years, I would definitely recommend that anything of importance is backed up, and that you have a spare drive available. Once errors occur, and you can verify that the number of bad sectors on the drive is increasing, it can begin to cascade such that more and more of the drive fails in a shorter amount of time - or - you will will reach the dreaded day when the drive will cease to Boot or ID. Five years is the longest warranty around (Seagate) and I think that it coincides with their MTBF figures, to take that to heart. I just ordered Extendos and CD Writer so I can backup my hard disks to CDs, and bought a few spare drives on eBay. Keep in mind that the MSTE doesn't like drives above about 1gb, so they are getting scarce as time goes on. Cheers! Oh yeah, backup is a *necessity* not an option. I've got the latest ExtenDOS version, and will order the new CDWriter suite (DVD support!) once its released (I've got the last release). I've used the products from Roger Burrows and Anodyne Software for years and can very highly recommend them. They rock. I beta tested recently with them, and was able to use an IDE DVD with my CT60 Falcon. It was just amazing to go to the nearest Wal-mart, pick up a Lite-On DVD, plug it into my 1992 Falcon, and use it. I've actually got CD backups from the 90's. I backup my BBS software to CD about once a month now. I don't have a 2nd hard drive, but I"m thinking about that. Later... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.