Released in 1984, the 5.25" full-height Fujitsu M2243AS was the drive for the user (or server) that didn't want to ever worry about running out of space (and that money was no object). Who could possibly fill 70 megabytes back in 1984 or 1985? The cost for that privilege was $2,000 (or $5,550 in 2022 dollars) (1). Later, according to the Fujitsu Sales Prospector (1986), this drive cost $1,865 in 100-unit quantities ($5,066 in 2022 dollars).
This is by far the oldest hard drive in my collection as of the making of this video.
DRIVE VITALS:
Interface: ST-506/412
Form factor: 5.25" full-height
Capacity: 68.84MiB
Platters: 6, Heads: 11
RPM: 3,600
Cache buffer: unknown
Date: January 1985
This early example somehow still works after sitting for years (maybe decades). However, the more I use it, the more bad sectors that appear. In preparing the drive for this video, I set the drive up to not use its 11th head, since there were too many bad sectors.
As for the listed RPM in the title card, it's erroneously listed as 3,603 instead of 3,600. I use a spectrum analyzer app on my phone which is how I can determine the drive's actual RPM. For some reason, the app I use, Spectroid, reads 0.1% too high (which I realized after posting the video). It's also the only app I've found so far from Google Play that shows frequency to two decimal points, allowing me to get the exact RPM of the drive.
Excuse the issues with the exposure/white balance during the Windows 95 install
(1) reference: Page 156 of Database Machines: Fourth International Workshop
Fujitsu Sales Prospector 1986: archive.org/details/bitsavers...
0:00 Drive startup
0:17 HDmotion run
4:08 Speedsys run
8:31 Windows 95 install
33:07 Drive shutdown