SyQuest Technology Inc has tried before to match the removable storage products of its highly successful rival Iomega Corp, but now it has released two products it claims will significantly outperform its competition. The products are the new 4.7Gb Quest disk drive, and 1Gb Sparq removable cartridge. Syquest, currently undergoing a major restructuring after a string of poor results (CI No 3,282) claims Quest is the highest capacity removable storage product on the market and has over three times the capacity of any removable hard disk cartridge. It also says that the product is the first of its kind to use the dual-stripe magneto-resistive recording heads usually found only in fixed hard drives. Other features include 2Mb cache buffer and an ultra-wide SCSI interface, designed to enable full motion playback and real-time streaming video direct from the drive. Syquest claims a maximum data transfer rate of 10.6Mb per second and an average seek time of 12 milliseconds. Quest will be aimed at audio visual professionals who specialize in multimedia production and digital recording applications, such as DVD mastering and editing. Meanwhile Syquest’s lower-end Sparq offerings are aimed more directly at Iomega’s Jazz product line, though according to Syquest it has similar pricing to Iomega’s low-end Zip drive line. Quest will be available to OEMs in December with wider distribution to follow. It will sell for $599 including one 5.25 inch, 4.7GB cartridge, with additional cartridges priced at $199. The Sparq drive will cost from $199 with a pack of three cartridges retailing at $99.
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