SyQuest Delivers Miniature Cartridge System
From the Original Pages
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If mobile computers follow the general trend in the industry, operating systems, applications, and even the data itself is likely to grow and grow. However, the cost of storage options, ranging from PC Card-based hard disks to solid state memory systems continue to remain expensive. What’s a mobile user to do? One new option was introduced by SyQuest Technology at Fall COMDEX in Las Vegas. SyQuest is probably best known for its innovative removable cartridge media, now a standard among publishers and graphic designers. SyQuest has taken this technology and moved it to a seemingly unbelievable new level – the Type III PC Card (PCMCIA) format.
The new removable cartridge drive, dubbed the SQ1100, uses tiny cartridges storing 100 MB and measuring roughly the size of a matchbook. Currently available to OEMs and industrial resellers for US $299, including one cartridge, the company expects to make it more widely available during the fist quarter of 1996. SyQuest is pricing additional 100 MB cartridges at $49, making it a very attractive mobile storage option in terms of cents per megabyte. The SQ1100 has impressive specifications, including a cartridge system that is capable of withstanding up to 150 Gs while in operation, and 2,000 Gs of shock without data loss during non-operation.
In addition, the drive offers 15 msec average seek time with an average sustained data transfer rate of 1.3 MB per second. And with a claimed mean time between failures (MTBF) of 250,000 hours, the cartridge should serve well in most applications. The SQ1100 actually represents SyQuest’s second attempt at this technology. The company’s earlier product, the SQ1080, stored an impressive 80 MB but apparently OEMs demanded more. In addition to mobile computers, SyQuest anticipates that the SQ1100 could become a standard within the digital photography market where removable and high-storage are two very desirable characteristics.
SyQuest Technology
47041 Bayside Pkwy.
Fremont, CA 94538
(510) 226-4000
(510) 226-4102 (fax)
Transcribed from Pen-Based Computing, Volume 5, Number 12 — December 1995. Page 7.