hard drive history

Seagate Decathlon 545

A Decathlon 850, The 545 was very similar. Photo: Red Hill.

The ST5660A was the first Decathlon, a name that would become famous not too much later on. As with all the Decathlon drives, it came in an unusual, slim-line form — but unlike its younger, bigger brothers it was a 4500 RPM unit. Nevertheless, it was noticeably faster than other drives available at the time. Notice the first digit of the model number. As always with Seagate drives, the first digit designates the form factor. In this case, the "5" indicates a 3.5 inch slimline drive, where a "3" is a standard half or third-height unit, a "4" a full-height 5.25 inch drive, and so on.