Milpitas, California-based Quantum Corp has announced the Quantum Sirocco 1700 and 2550 drives for the desktop, with 1.7Gb and 2.55Gb of storage respectively. The 3.5 drives combine magnetoresistive head technology and Partial Response Maximum Likelihood, technologies that drive real density and performance improvements. The two technologies work together to give the Sirocco 2550 the highest capacity in the desktop market, Quantum claims. The Sirocco 1700 is designed for mainstream desktop applications while the 2550 is aimed at storage-intensive consumer applications. Both, for example, are ideally suited for multimedia authoring and playback, high-performance interactive video and information downloading applications from the Internet and other sources, says Quantum. The fast ATA-2 interface on the Quantum Sirocco drives support local bus AT-programmed input-output mode 4 and multiword DMA mode 2 data transfers at speeds up to 16.6Mbps with rotational speed of 4,500rpm. The Quantum Sirocco SCSI drives support Fast SCSI-3 data transfer rates of up to 10Mbps. Multiple AutoRead and Multiple AutoWrite, firmware systems for increasing sequential data transfers, have been improved to enable multiple-sector transfers for a given data request. Multiple AutoRead and AutoWrite also enhance AutoTransfer capabilities. Quantum’s data integrity feature has also been enhanced for double-burst error correct on-the-fly, enabling correction of up to 48 bits of data without interrupting sequential and random data transfers. Evaluation units will be ready in February with volume production in March. The 1700 and 2550 cost $265 and $395 respectively.
