Maxtor Corp, San Jose has leaped into the 2.5 Winchester market with its first product – but instead of pulling its usual trick of cramming twice as much data on the disk as its rivals, it has opted to compete on performance, and it says its 85Mb Apache 2585 AT and SCSI version drives have a seek time of 15mS, which it claims is the fastest in the 85Mb capacity range. The first in a planned family – so we should be seeing 170Mb models quite soon it features a data transfer rate of 8M-bytes-per-second for the AT version and 5M-bytes-per-second for the SCSI version. It features multiple modes of power management – idle, standby and sleep, drawing 1.10W during idle, 200mW in standby and sleep mode and 2.7W during read-writes. It uses Bi-MOS VLSI circuitry to provide the highest level on-board integration available while keeping the drive’s power draw low. The dual-platter 2585 weighs 6oz and measures 0.69 high, 4 long and 2.75 wide. As well as notebook and laptop computers, Maxtor sees it being used in printers, plotters, facsimile machines and copiers. Evaluation shipments have begun, with volume production set for next quarter: the 2585 costs $395 in OEM quantities.
