The first US company to come out with a disk drive that breaches the 3.5 form factor is Longmont, Colorado-based PrairieTek Corp, a two-year-old disk drive manufacturer that is pioneering a new 2.5 form factor for Winchesters for use in lap-top and portable computers – and Phase IV Systems Ltd, based in the Oxford Business […]
The first US company to come out with a disk drive that breaches the 3.5 form factor is Longmont, Colorado-based PrairieTek Corp, a two-year-old disk drive manufacturer that is pioneering a new 2.5 form factor for Winchesters for use in lap-top and portable computers – and Phase IV Systems Ltd, based in the Oxford Business Centre has rushed out the news that it has the UK rights to the drive. The low-power, ruggedised, high performance 2.5 Prairie 220, has a 28mS average seek time, requires under 2W power for spin-up as compared with over 9W for even the newest low-power 3.5 drives, and a ramp loading technique means that the drive can be spun down when it is not being used without risk of damage to the head or platter, and in this mode the power requirement is just 100mW. it consumes an average 1.5W – 3W when reading, 3.1W writing, 2.6W seeking, and weighs just nine ounces, measuring 1 by 2.8 by 4.3. The initial version comes with IBM AT or SCSI interface, and stores 20Mb, although a 40Mb version is promised for the first half of 1989. The unit price will be under $400 in large OEM quantities, and first shipments in Europe are set for January 1989. PrairieTek was founded by Terry Johnson, now its chairman, who was also a founder of MiniScribe Corp and Codata – now Conner Peripherals Inc.
