My Site

2314 Disk

It was a lot like the 2311 and you should look at disks in general and addressing.

First step was they ditched the hydraulics pushing the heads in and out and replaced it with a voice coil. Then they made it bigger by doubling the number of platters.

They also changed the package. Ther 2311 was a dingle drive, about waist high and the 2314 is a head high pair of drives. There is a draw that slides out when you press a button. Change the pack and press the button to close the draw and spin up. The address of the disk also changes to let the operator change address.

A funny story. IBM sold/leased all the stuff. Later some other manufacturers made their own versions that were compatible. We got 2314 drives from, I think, Memorex. They were single units, like the 2311s. The position of the heads could be adjusted and locked down with a set screw. The problem was the set screw had a point and if you tightened it a little too much the pioin would dig in. Later you might move the heads just a hair and you would tighten the screw with the point on the side of the previous divit. As the drive was used and vibrated the set screw would slide all the way into the divit and the drive would be out of alignment and not work. This happened so often we paid for 6 drives, got 8, and would not get night service until 2 broke. I never saw IBM align one of their drives.