Slowest-seeking floppy or hard drive ever made?

I don't know what was the slowest, but I suspect u can get by with what was the slowest defacto industry standard as default and not worry about anyone who was faster. As I recall Shugart dominated the 8 and 5? inch FDs and they were not buffered. So your step rates from their specs are SA800 ? 8 msec SA400 ? 40 msec SA400L ? 20 msec I believe most of the 3? did use buffered seek and I would get the Sony spec, not the first Sony but the one that complied with the MIC standard cartridge spec. Sony may have adopted the Shugart spec, which was: SA300 Unbuffered ? 6 msec SA300 Buffered ? 50 usec minimum period; 1 usec minimum pulse width The SA1000 8-inch HDD from a secondary source apparently can accept buffered pulses at a 1.0 u sec min spacing. The ST506 OEM manual is at Bitsavers; it was unbuffered only at 3 msec minimum period, 10 usec minimum pulse width. (there was a hidden internal second pulse generated at 2.8 msec) The ST412 specification [Apr 82] was one Seagate buffered mode implementation that most everyone had to follow ST412 Unbuffered ? 3 msec ST412 Buffered ? 25 usec minimum period; 200 usec maximum period, 2.0 usec minimum pulse width Microprocessor utilization on the ST412 adds the capability of capturing and storing up to 305 step pulses. The controller may burst pulses to the 412 and they will be accepted until 1) time after last pulse exceeds 200 usec or 2) 305 step pulses are received. At the occurrence of either of these conditions, the ST 412 microprocessor will stop accepting step pulses from the controller and will begin issuing them to the stepper motor. Depending on the length of seek, the microprocessor will select the optimum algorithm. Any pulses issued at a rate between 200 usec and 3 msec may be lost. Note the subsequent ST212 (Apr 84) has a buffered spec of 5 usec min, 500 usec max with a 2 usec min pulse width. So I would set my defaults Unbuffered FDD seek ? 40 msec Buffered FDD seek ? not supported Unbuffered HDD seek ? 6 msec Buffered HDD Seek ? 25 usec period with a 2 usec pulse Good luck Tom