IBM OEM Europe has announced a string of new products from its Storage Systems Division for shipment next year as part of its plan for a complete refresh of its disk drive range. Hottest property is the first 5Gb 3.5 drive in its existing high-capacity range, and at the low end there is a new range of 2.5 disk drives for the notebook. The 2.5 DHAA Models have an AT(IDE) interface with an 8.3M-byte per second data rate and the DHAS model with a SCSI-2 interface and data rate of 10.0M-byte per second, both versions coming in 540Mb, 405Mb and 270Mb, and available in the first and early second quarters next year respectively. The six drives use magneto-resistive head technology which gives 493M-bits per square inch along with error correction coding. The new 3.5 disk drives for the desktop are the DSAA models with an AT(IDE) interface with up to 8.3M-bytes per second data rates and DSAS models with a Fast-SCSI-2 interface and faster data rate up to 10M-bytes per second, also out in the same time scale respectively. The High Capacity DFMS range comes in 5.2Gb, 4Gb, 2.6Gb, 2.1Gb and 1Gb versions and support data rates of 7M-bytes per second to a peak of 12.2M-bytes, and areal density of 564M-bits per square inch, the appeal being for data intensive applications. Average seek time is 8mS for the 1 high model and 8.6ms for the 1.6 model. Customers who require greater performance can use the High Performance DFHS family in capacities of 4.3Gb, 2.1Gb, and 1Gb, 7,200 rpm disk rotation speed and a data rate range of from 9M-bytes to 12.2M-bytes per second. Average seek time is 8mS. This series will also be offered with an IBM Serial Storage Architecture interface to provide a high transfer rate. A new small form factor tape drive for mid-range and Unix environments is to be offered, based on the IBM 3490 tape units. It has a 3M-bytes per second transfer rate for those with back-up time constraints, time saving from the bidirectional read-write function and error correc tion coding, with capacity up to 16.8Gb of uncompacted data. The new 0662 Model A10 drive is an extension of the existing SCSI-att ached models 0662 range, but is now compatible with an AT interface, sampling now with volume in the first quarter of next year. IBM did not give prices for any of the new products.
