History (1991): Maxtor Into 2.5-Inch HDD

Maxtor Corp. (San Jose, CA) enters for the first time the 2.5-inch Winchester disk drive market with the 85MB Apache 2585.

Two specs beat records in 2.5-inch drives: a 15ms seek time and a 250,000-hour MTBF (recently matched by Western Digital).

The unit features a data transfer rate of 8MB/s for the AT version and 5MB/s for the SCSI one. It draws 1.10W during R/W operations.

Bi-MOS VLSI circuitry provides a high level of on-board integration while keeping the drive’s power draw low. The dual-platter 2585 weighs just 6 ounces and measures 0.69(H)x4(L)x2.75(W) inches.

Shipments of Apache 2585 evaluation units have begun, with OEM volume production scheduled to begin in 4Q91.

OEM quantity pricing is $395 per unit.

Actually, 4 companies announced 2.5-inch HDDs with capacities of over 80MB: Conner Peripherals and its Pancho CP-2084, in April 1991; Seagate and its ST9096A launched in November 1990; and Quantum and its Go*Drive 80 in September 1990, with production just beginning at a $450 price in OEM quantities; the last one is Western Digital‘s Tidbit II. IBM also mentioned a 86MB drive last May in USA.

Maxtor had said in March 1991, that it planned to produce a 42.8MB model, the 2541, and another 85.6MB one, the 2580.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 44, published on September 1991.