Areal Technology Inc, the San Jose company with heavy Japanese backing that makes its disk platters out of glass rather than Aluminium or metal alloy, is setting the standard in the 2.5 disk drive market with a 62.9Mb model – and says it is working on a 100Mb version for its next trick. Use of glass enables it to squeeze the 62.9Mb onto a single platter; the drive has average access time of 22mS, and transfers data at 7.5M-bits per second. It includes a 32Kbbuffer but measures only 0.59 high, including printed circuit board. It uses the AT interface and measures 3.45 by 2.75. The MD-2060 is now being manufactured at Areal’s San Jose headquarters and will begin large-scale volume production at Sanyo’s Tottori City facility in early 1991. It sells for $1,000 in evaluation quantities.
