Disk drive manufacturer Micropolis Corp, San Jose is set to re-enter the disk array market in a few months after three years’ break with no new products. According to Electronic News, development programmes – involving disk drive arrays and 3.5 drives – have been re-started and a 5.25 drive with 1.8Gb of storage and a data transfer rate of up to 10Mb per second is being completed ready for shipment in the next couple of months. Also, a 3.5 disk drive storing a startling 1Gb is scheduled for release next year, which would double the capacity of currently available products. The company had to pull the plug on such developments when it ran short of cash – Micropolis ran up around $70m losses over seven consecutive quarters from July 1988, but is now getting back on its feet after accumulating $5m net profits over two quarters, on turnover that was up 35% on the previous year at $200m. Micropolis is optimistic that the new products will give it the needed boost onto safe dry ground. And Montgomery Securities echoes this confidence, predicting that the company will hold 35% of the estimated $300m market for 1Gb+ 5.25 disk drives. Bear Stearns analysts, however, are a bit more sceptical, expressing concern about the company’s high level of debts and saying that Micropolis’ dependence on 5.25 drives makes it indirectly open to the effects of the recession in its reliance on the business of minicomputer makers. Micropolis’ new disk array products – redundant arrays of inexpensive disks or RAID are modular, enabling multiple configurations, and array software will also run on a host CPU – in the old design it ran on a separate controller board. The RAID system will use up to 24 SCSI-based drives and arrays for Unix and Novell’s NetWare are currently in development. Micropolis’ latest product – the 1.8Gb 5.25 drive, priced at $9,000 – has a SCSI-2 interface, supports disk array configurations and has a data transfer rate of up to 10Mb per second using eight disks. SCSI-2 interface technology is to be added to other drives, along with disk caching technology which improves access time.
