Data General Corp has abandoned its effort to develop a high capacity 5.25 Winchester disk drive, Electronic News reports. The drive, being developed at the company’s Durham, New Hampshire base under the Harem-5 code name, was due for completion as long ago as last January, but slipped way behind schedule before being abandoned. The company’s only current in-house drive, made at its Westbrook, Maine plant, is the 350Mb 14 drive that was to have been replaced by the Harem-5. The company is persisting with the 14 form factor, and plans units in the 1Gb range in the form factor. In particular, a 14 drive code-named Argus-3 is expected shortly. The company will now buy its 5.25 drives OEM, and has reportedly put feelers out for 5,000 380Mb drives to Hewlett-Packard, Micropolis, CDC and Maxtor; Data General is believed to have ordered 250Mb drives from Maxtor in the spring that have not yet turned up in any products.
