Hawk Disk Drive

[Billy Pettit]

Jim wrote:

From: jwsmobile <jws at jwsss.com>
Subject: GE disk drives on ebay, one badged Datacraft

GE-14-Hawk-Drive-23991-47d266933G3


http://www.ebay.com/itm/261895292646

One of these systems really appears to be a CDC drive, but the other one 
is badged Datacraft 5208, and doesn't look familiar.

Any idea on what it is?  Looks like something that would fit a 
collection of storage devices as a unique item, given that it is 14" 
removable.

This page implies it is a CDC drive, but I've not seen one with the 
front this one has.

http://www.mfarris.com/pack/datacraft.html

thanks
Jim

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Couldn't view the item on eBay - got the message that it was removed.  However the page you sent for Datacraft 4441 shows it to be a CDC Hawk drive.  The 9425 was first made by NCR.  It moved from California to Oklahoma when CPI and MPI were formed.

The early version 9425 Cartridge Disk Drive was not a good product.  It was re-engineered into the 9427H, code named Hawk.  Both were 5MB fixed, 5MB removeable cartridge.  Available as a rack mount or stand alone cabinet.  There were 4 different types of plug in interfaces available.  As near as I can remember, there were around 350 different configurations in production.  Most were variations on the color(s) of the skins.  But there were also options for sector count, power supplies, front name plate, terminators, cables, etc.

Without the original configuration data, it is hard to look at a Hawk and tell what was in it and who was the OEM customer.  Customer base was like a who's who of 1970s - minicomputers to early microcomputers.  There were even a few S-100 controllers for it

There was a 2 disk fixed only version called the Falcon.

Really brings back the memories.

Billy