• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
  • From now on we will require that a prefix is set for any items in the sales area. We have created regions and locations for this. We also require that you select a delivery option before posting your listing. This will hopefully help us streamline the things that get listed for sales here and help local people better advertise their items, especially for local only sales. New sales rules are also coming, so stay tuned.

Shugart SA 606 Hard Drive

C

chris_nh

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2019
Messages
372
Location
New Hampshire
Does anyone have any interest in a Shugart model 606 hard drive? It appears to be a 5.25" full height drive, 160 cyl, 6 heads, 10mb mfm.

The drive spins up and sounds like it initializes. This is probably one worth saving as it seems like a rare model and I couldn't find much info about it.

Anyway, funny story, I ordered a different drive and was surprised when I opened the box and found this drive inside instead. I'm going to send this back to the seller, but let me know if there's any interest before I send it back.

Thanks
 
Thanks Chuck, I had already seen that. I just want to point out his isn't a post looking for information, this is a post looking to find anyone who would want to rescue this rare vintage drive. It will probably end up going to the scrapper.
 
Okay, I was misled a bit by your "I couldn't find much information about it". Pretty much a last gasp of Shugard-branded 5.25" drives. I find the SA100x and SA400x more interesting.

There were a lot of 5.25" FH drive makers. Personally, I'd like to have a working Evotek. :)
 
Yeah, I was being metaphorical to illustrate the rarity of the drive. I know you don't know that I know what I know, haha.

I'd probably keep the drive for myself and would love to play with it some more, if it weren't that I paid for something else and the value doesn't quite match, so it goes back ;) but it would need a controller for PC usage anyway as the 160 cyl count is uncommon in PC land. None of my controllers support it anyway. I have revived a lot of MFM drives, but I mostly collect the half-height MFM 5.25 drives. About 75% of the seagate drives I get are still functional. The other 25% are usually heads stuck to platter, but I find that this is even mostly on the ST225 types. The RLL types with different platters don't seem to have the stuck head problem as bad. I think all of Shugart's early designs are pretty interesting from a historical perspective too. The early "winchester" drive market was interesting for sure... lots of companies scrambling to become a player in the game.

I'm curious which systems Shugart had in mind for this drive? Seems like it wasn't quite meant for a PC, but maybe it was just a market dud because the product development was moving so fast, like it didn't stick to the wall when they threw it. Incidentally, the drive serial number is in the 9 thousands, maybe only 10k of these drives ever made? Maybe they produced a batch and moved on to the next thing.
 
PCs and the like were certainly the target for the 60x (fh) and 70x (hh)--recall that Shugart was acquired by Xerox in the late 1970s and was pretty much neglected. The 60x and 70x were Shugart's attempt to gain a foothold of sorts in the 5.25" hard disk market, but it was too late and Xerox sold off the operation in 1985 or so.

I've never seen an SA70x drive "in the flesh", though some must surely exist. Those would be rare.
 
Yes it would be a find for sure! I've been looking for a model 712, but really looking for any Shugart half-height drives. What was Xerox's involvement?
 
It was all Al Shugart--I remember when he had to change his new outfit's name to "Seagate". (Shugart Associates drives are all SAxxxx units; Shugart Tech/Seagate are all STxxxx). After absorption by Xerox, SA changed its name to Shugart Corporation.

You'll occasionally find "Shugart Venture" 3.5" floppy drives on eBay; these bear part numbers of SA300 or SA350. They're products of Shugart Corp/Associates, as the part numbers testify, but I think they were really made by Matsushita/Panasonic and rebadged.

However, this "Shugart Venture" is not to be confused with Al's "Shugart Venture" fund that he operated until his death in 2006, which also operated under the name "Al Shugart International".

Confusing enough? :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top