Description

IBM H3171-A2 171MB IDE Hard Drive

Classic 3.5-inch slim-line IDE hard drive from IBM’s early 1990s lineup. The IBM H3171-A2 provides 171 MB of reliable formatted storage, making it an excellent choice for restoring authentic 386, 486, and early Pentium-era PCs.

*** Hard drive is tested for no bad sectors and is formatted as a FAT32 partition.

Key Specifications:

• Capacity: 171 MB formatted
• Form Factor: 3.5-inch Slim-Line (SL) – low profile (≈1 inch height)
• Interface: IDE / ATA (40-pin AT-Bus, ATA-1 compatible)
• Spindle Speed: 3,600 RPM
• Cache Buffer: 96 KB (segmented with read look-ahead)
• Average Seek Time: 14 ms (track-to-track ~4 ms)
• Data Transfer Rate: Up to 8.3 MB/s (external PIO Mode 2), ~3 MB/s internal
• Geometry (Logical): 984 cylinders / 10 heads / 34 sectors
• Power: Standard +5V / +12V Molex 4-pin connector
• Jumper Configurable: Master / Slave / Cable Select

Built for Vintage Systems

This genuine IBM drive was commonly used in IBM PS/1, PS/ValuePoint, and many other mid-1990s desktop computers. It performs perfectly in period-correct restorations, DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95/98 retro builds.