Hard Drive Giveaway #5: I've Got 3350 GB of Storage to Give Away

[Jason Dunn]

<p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1250370548.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>OK, here we go with contest #5! If you haven't already read up on why I'm giving these hard drives away, <a href="http://www.digitalhomethoughts.com/news/show/94866/hard-drive-giveaway-i-ve-got-3350-gb-of-storage-to-give-away.html" target="_blank">please check out the first contest giveaway</a>.</p><p>In honour of the particular hard drive I'm giving away - a slightly older 300 GB parallel ATA drive - to enter this contest post a message telling me what the first hard drive you remember buying is, and how much it cost you. If you got it as part of a computer, post the specs if you can remember them. Let's take a trip down tech-memory lane...</p><p>I'll select the winner at random. Once you win one of the contests, you're out of the running for the next contests in this series. Each winner will be contacted via private forum message and they'll have 72 hours to respond to claim their prize - so be sure email notifications are turned on for your forum account. The last contest I ran someone missed out on winning a prize because they didn't reply to my message for two weeks!</p><p>The drive I'm giving away in this fifth contest is a <strong>Maxtor DiamondMax 300 GB (PATA)</strong>. This contest will close on Thursday October the 1st 12 noon GMT -7. Enter now!</p><p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> The contest is now closed. And the winner is...<a class="bigusername" href="http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/members/bob-christensen/">Bob Christensen</a>! Thanks to everyone that entered. It was fun reading about some really old technology.</p>

[Joel Crane]

My first hard drive was a 2.5 inch 6GB in my very first laptop. I paid $100 for it, and it was a Pentium 266mhz with 128mb of RAM, a 14 inch Active-matrix screen, and it was pretty thin.

[andrew_lee]

The first hard drive I bought was a 120MB Microscience RLL drive. It was a 5.25" half-height drive that cost $200, I think. I had been running low on space on the 110MB Fujitsu 5.25" full-height drive that had come with my system.

[Bob Christensen]

I think the first HD I purchased was a 500MB for almost $300.

But years before that, I remember buying a (used) 1MB memory board (no hard drive) for a Zenith Z-100... couldn't wait to put out almost $300 for that. You could use the whole thing for a RAM drive and, boy, would WordStar and Lotus 123 fly!

[paschott]

First hard drive we had as a family was an RLL 30 MB Drive. My first computer (286) had a 40MB HD that had to be partitioned. I think the first drive I personally bought was either a 120 MB or a 500 MB IDE hard drive. I remember that it cost me $500 for that hard drive.

Of course one of the things I loved about DOS in those days was that it was pretty easy to swap drives around. Put one in, copy files, SYS the drive, swap positions and possibly jumpers. Tried something similar with XP and found that it had remembered all of the drive letters which led to some very interesting times of registry hacking. :)

And if I win, I'm pretty sure this drive is headed for an external enclosure. I don't think my current setup could handle it without buying a new card.

[uzziah0]

The first drive I bought was in my 486 Acer. I can't remember how big it was, but I really researched this computer purchase, I kept that until the Pentium/586 confusion settled down.

Prior to that at work, we had a PC in the lab that had a hard drive in it, and one day the computer would not start up. I opened the case, and found a hard drive in there that had been opened, someone broke the seal. We guessed someone had problems with their computer at home, tried to open the drive to "fix" it, and exchanged it for ours in the lab. I think it cost us like $200 for the 12 Meg replacement.

[leslietroyer]

The first drive I remember purchasing (not with my mony) was a 5MB Shugart Associates 8" (1002 and 1008 stick in the memeory) SASI about $2000 ea. not including the controller card and host adapter.

The first drive I purchased with my own money was a 5 or 10 MB Seagate ST506 style 5 1/4 half high for about $500.

[firedog]

I think my first HD was a 500 MB model on a 386 Windows 3.1 PC. It was also used for work, and I remember convincing my boss that I needed 8 MB of RAM instead of 4 MB on the PC so I could work efficiently. If my memory is correct, the upgrade of 4 MB cost around $200!

[dtanderson]

It was so long ago that I cannot remember. It may have been a 40MB but I do remember at the time hard drives were about 1 dollar a MB. A 100MB drive would cost you about $100, 200MB would cost you about $200.... I remember when they hit the 1GB that was when the bottom fell out an the prices started getting real cheap.

Put my name in the hat. I am in need of a much bigger drive to store all of my data on.

Plus my birthday is coming up and it would make a great early birthday present :)

[Cold Flame]

I think my first harddrive was a 500 or 600 mb hd on an sx2-33 Compaq all in one PC (CRT, mobo, cd-rom drive, etc...). What a POS that thing was. =)

[jazboy01]

My first hard drive was 20 GB in my desktop. I custom builded my desktop with help of my frd. I can't recall how much it cost but i guess it costs around $150.00.

[jlafount]

I don't remember the exact size. I think it was around 500MB and this was in 1995.

[tabi13]

I came into the PC scene a bit late.
My first hard drive was a 1gb Seagate 5400rpm drive which came bundled in an unbranded system (branded/unbranded had huge price differences then)
with

Pentium 100Mhz
16mb Ram
1gb Seagate 5400rpm HD
and
A MPEG card!!! (remember those?)

Cost me somewhere in the neighbourhood of $900!! back in 1996

[Ploobers]

I remember destroying a 420 MB hard drive, so that the OS showed it having a negative 1 GB of storage. I replaced that hard drive with a 500 MB one.

[Reid Kistler]

First two systems were floppy drives only - wasn't until purchasing a Northgate 286-based system that a HD was included.

Do not remember what the HD added to the cost, but it was a MicroScience 60MB RLL drive: 50% more storage and faster data access than the more common MFM drives of the time (most competing systems installed 30 - 40MB drives).

First REPLACEMENT HD that we purchased was 250MB. Do not recall manufacturer, but do remember being tickled that cost was BELOW the "magical" $1/MB price point (! :rolleyes: ) - which is also referenced by one of the earlier posts....

[gschlau]

Much more interesting is the LACK of a HDD, methinks. My first computer (in 1988) was actually a HUGE NEC (remember them?) laptop. It had two 720k floppy drives--one for the program disk and one for the data. Quicken ran beautifully this way! Remember when code--good code--fit inside 720k? Ha!

[Jason Dunn]

The contest is now closed. And the winner is...Bob Christensen (http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/members/bob-christensen/)! Thanks to everyone that entered. It was fun reading about some really old technology. :D

[dtanderson]

congrats! Bob

[jazboy01]

Congrats Bob