Pictures: bananahdd.nl/index.php/2024/04/07/western-digital-wdal2540-520mb-1996/ I've been away for a little while due to a very busy schedule, so thanks for sticking around if you have! I won't be too active for the time being on here for a little while still, but I hope you enjoy hearing this random rare 2.5" WD drive! It's certainly not one you come across often.
Haha, I think it's clear that inspired me to finally recording this thing! It's a neat little unit, although I hope the few that still remain are slightly more reliable than this example. I've got quite a few videos of yours to catch up on!
I remember when you found that drive and talked about it on discord, it's a shame that the stiction it has is so bad and the drive appears to be failing, it's quite an interesting one. I'm glad you got the time to make a video again! :)
Yeah, I'm pretty sad about that! It's nice to have, but inside should also be quite interesting, so I suppose it has its own plus in that right. Thanks for checking it out of course, I was quite happy to finally upload after so long :) I also have so many videos to catch up on after all too! You've really had some interesting content as of late!
Thanks! It's a mini comeback, but I hope to at least upload a bit more often! Thank you for watching as usual. As far as I'm aware WD didn't use any Caviar branding for these, but I can only tell that based on the label of course. There's a listing online that uses "Caviar Lite" for the title, but I don't think that's necessarily correct.
I have one of these in a Contura Aero. Its slow, but at least no bad sectors or stiction problem. I think I have a Caviar Lite 170 or something somewhere. Fully functional.
Ah that's awesome! Not common drives at all, so it's cool to hear about another one. Certainly a cool coincidence to both have the same two older 2.5" WD's! My Lite 170 is also still in perfect shape fortunately. I wish I had the same luck with your WDAL2540 though!
So glad to see this video! Such a shame this drive is failing, it’s so interesting and rare. Very excited to see what it looks like inside. Great to see another upload from you! Your collection has so many interesting drives.
Thanks so much for watching! It's a shame it's dying, but at least the seektest was successfully recorded! I hope to show the insides within the next couple weeks at least. Based on your channel, it looks like you have quite a few interesting models too! I've got quite some good content to watch/catch up on it seems :)
Totally! I think it's quite a shame they didn't continue making 2.5" drives after this, I think there could've been a lot of really interesting models. I'm sure they'd have kept the fun colour trend too!
I didnt know this even existed. Very cool drive! Its too bad it had errors reading/writing. The seek test on it even sounds similar to the old caviars of its time.
Yeah, it's quite a difficult one to find! It's a shame about the issues, but at least it still managed to pass its seek test like you mentioned. I really like how WD's really sound so similar to their 3.5" counterparts! Thanks for sticking around!
Glad to see a new video of yours. I hope your schedule allows you to at least have a break sometimes, or even make more recordings of the various drives out there. Cheers!
Really appreciate it, cheers! I'll do my best of course, more recordings is definitely something I aim to work on :) Thanks so much for sticking around & watching!
It's an interesting HDD. It feels like I've only switched stickers from the latest WD 2.5" product. I can't believe there's such an old WD 2.5" HDD. It hasn't been uploaded to the channel for a long time, so I was worried about what's going on. (I think I saw some comments on other channels along the way, of course), but it's nice to see you again. My best HDD channel! *Because I used a translator, there may have been unintended expressions.
Thank you for sticking around! I was quite surprised to find this drive too, it's definitely quite interesting and wasn't something I'd seen before. It reminds me of the labels on the WD5000MPCK for example, the shape looks quite similar I think! My apologies for the lack of uploads, I do hope to be a little more active if my time allows! Thanks for your support!
The PCB does look quite cute (and pretty packed!). It's a shame they didn't continue making these, since it looks like they put a lot of effort into making this entirely new chassis and logic layout, so I feel like they possibly made a major loss on their development costs due to how few of these seem to be around. Of course, we'll never know, but it's somewhat of a shame. I love they how they compare to their 3.5" models!
