Comments on: What happened to Maxtor hard drives https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-maxtor-hard-drives/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-happened-to-maxtor-hard-drives David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more Sun, 28 Dec 2025 05:23:49 +0000 hourly 1 By: James https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-maxtor-hard-drives/#comment-57409 Sun, 28 Dec 2025 05:23:49 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=39918#comment-57409 I had a few different Maxtor drives. I think I had one fail, but I had a 1.8GB model was still working by the time it was well obsolete. I’ve had a similar mix of good drives and duds across various generations of the other big brands. I still have a 1.2GB 5.25” Maxtor SCSI drive, I should see if it still works. Seems like most of the large drive companies made good and bad runs of drives but I’ve known plenty of guys that swore by/at one brand or another.

]]> By: bcuthieBrian Cuthie https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-maxtor-hard-drives/#comment-57405 Fri, 26 Dec 2025 18:18:15 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=39918#comment-57405 I worked at a company in 1984 that was building caching disk subsystems for minicomputers, mostly DEC PDP-11s. The XT-1140 was an amazing thing at its time, with a whopping (if I remember correctly) 140 megabytes of storage. But onboard cache didn’t come along until a few year later, so they were pretty slow by today’s standards, given that you were facing an average seek/rotational delay for every read/write. They were also 5 1/4″ sized drives, easily weighing 5 to 10 lbs each. But still quite the marvel at the time, given the alternatives.

]]> By: neo https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-maxtor-hard-drives/#comment-57404 Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:43:10 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=39918#comment-57404 do you know of plus development hard cards ?

i want them to install for Tandy 1000 8 bit 10″ slots

]]> By: Dave Farquhar https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-maxtor-hard-drives/#comment-57402 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 16:33:35 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=39918#comment-57402 In reply to Wes.

Thanks for the comment. Maxtor drives gave me more trouble than Quantum drives did but I always got at least 4 years out of them versus a year or two out of Western Digital drives. Maybe Maxtor drives just liked how I ran my computers better. It could also be the particular generations of drive I got, everyone had good and bad streaks in the 90s.

]]> By: Wes https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-maxtor-hard-drives/#comment-57399 Thu, 25 Dec 2025 03:07:32 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=39918#comment-57399 Stumbled across this looking for information about Central Hardware. A good couple hours spent reading your posts!

I used to buy Maxtor drives off some website (can’t remember) that sold cheap hardware around the turn of the century. Maybe price watch? Always wanted WesternDigital but being a broke college student Maxtor was the cheapest, and they always seemed to fail about 2 years in. Bought a handful of drives between 98-00 (4.3GB, 10GB, 20GB) and man I thought I was living high on the hog. That 4.3GB was puny, it was a WD drive though and still works today while the 10/20GB were Maxtor and went to the dustbin of history.

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