The company still needs to convert the achievement into a position of strength in the OEM market, but IBM Corp really does seem to have achieved technical dominance in the small form factor disk drive market with its new lines of 3.5 and 2.5 disks, the flagship offering being the Ultrastar2, a high-speed 3.5 drive with a formidable 10.8Gb, which is only 1.6 high; there is also an Ultrastar2 XP variant, which stores 8.7Gb. Seagate Technology Inc’s 9Gb drive, launched about a year ago, is a 5.25 drive. The bad news is that the new drives are a year away from market, evaluation units shipping in third quarter 1995, when they will be priced. Keys to the super-high capacity are IBM’s new No-ID sector formatting, which frees up to another 15% of the disk surface for data, and was described in CI No 2,413. The other breakthrough is in the third-generation magneto-resistive head technology. The 10.8Gb spins at only 5,400 rpm, but supports a media data transfer rate of up to 14.2M-bytes per second; it will come with a Fast and Wide SCSI interface. The 8.7Gb spins at 7,200 rpm and offers the same maximum data transfer rate. It will be offered with SCSI Fast, SCSI Fast and Wide, SCA 80-pin connectors and IBM’s new Serial Storage Architecture interfaces. The Travelstar LP family of 2.5 drives come in under the 810Mb 2.5 drive IBM announced in May. They come in versions storing up to 720Mb, use two platters and are 0.5 thick; they again use the No-ID sector formatting and areal density is 644M-bits per square inch for 360Mb per platter. There are also 540Mb and 360Mb versions of the new drives, which transfer at up to 11.1M-bytes per second; they have an AT interface and withstand up to 500G when not in use, 100G when running. They are out in volune at $695 for the Model DBOA-2720, $595 for the DBOA-2540 and $395 for the DBOA-2360. And the Deskstar XPs are 1 high 3.5 drives topping out with a two-platter 1.08Gb model. They spin at 5,400 rpm, transfer at up to 11.1M-bytes per second with an AT interface, up to 10M-bytes per second with SCSI-2, and deliver sustained data rates of 3.2M-bytes to 4M-bytes per second. They cost $695 for 1.0Gb, $495 for 540Mb, with either interface, now.
