Hitachi Data Systems has revealed its plans to answer IBM’s 3390 disk drives, promising a 7390 family of disks and a 7490 tape system by the end of the year. The 7390 will use 9.5 platters in sealed exchnageable Head-Disk Assemblies with single actuators for high data availability and maximum performance. The new drives will support 3.75Gb to 60Gb per string, and will be supported by the 7980 Control Unit in four path mode at first customer ship. The 7490 control unit will take up to two controllers per cabinet and drive units with four transports per cabinet. Data Compression II will support IBM’s new data compression algorithm. The 7390s will be $85,500 to $261,500, the 7490 from $50,075 to $94,450.
