Power Computing Corp may have to wait a little while for its Zip drives from Iomega Corp, because the Roy, Utah-based drive maker says demand is so high it’s having difficulty keeping up (CI No 2,680). The Zip drive, launched in April (CI No 2,652), has been a run-away success for the company but Srini Nageshwar, the company’s European senior vice-president and general manager, said the marketing success was a manufacturing nightmare. Demand for the $200 drive has been 10 times what the company had expected and it won’t have increased its manufacturing capacity to meet the demand until the end of the summer. Most of the drives will be made at the company’s plant in Utah but Iomega is investigating the possibility of contract manufacturing – Xyratex Ltd, the former IBM UK Ltd plant in Havant should jump at the work. Iomega expects to ship more than 1m by the end of the year. Iomega has also launched its Travan tape drive products, the Ditto 800 and Ditto 3200. This leaves only Solon, Ohio-based Rexon Inc to announce a product that supports Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co’s new tape technology. Travan has been designed to optimise the available space in a 3.5 drive form factor housing and are based on DC2000 minicartridge technology. They contain 750 feet of 0.315 tape, and pack considerably higher capacity. 3M has licensed the media technology only to Sony Corp, and has also just announced the TR-1, its 400Mb cartridge. Iomega’s Ditto 800 stores 800Mb with compression, on one of these cartridges, has a data transfer rate of 500Kbps and is read-write compatible with 250Mb, 350Mb and 420Mb 3.5 cartridges, and read-compatible with QIC-40 and Irwin tapes. The Ditto 800 will eventually replace Iomega’s Tape700 and Ditto 850 models, and the company expects it to become its best seller and entry level product. It sells for ú150 or ú230 for the parallel port version. The Ditto 3200 offers 3.2Gb of storage, with compression, and is read-write compatible with mini cartridges with capacities greater than 700Mb, but only read compatible with those below it and the 800Mb Travan tapes. Prices have not been officially announced by are likely to be ú100 more for each drive type. Both drives comes with back up software courtesy of Texan company Chilli Pepper Software Inc.
