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ART8
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1993-03-27
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Quantum
Hard Drive
by Tony Curro
Today's programs are getting larger, and require more disk space.
However, as the storage capacity increases, it seems, due to new
technology, that the physical drive is getting smaller.
When hard drives were first released, as were floppy drives, they
were huge affairs. Many of them were full height drives. This meant
using up two drive bays to install one drive. I saw an ad for an
original IBM 10MB full height hard drive for $895. Today, you may be
bordering on purchasing a 1 gigabyte drive, for about that amount.
We truly have come a long way.
I recently had a MAJOR hard drive crash. I had a full height 300MB
ESDI drive. Since the trend is leaning toward IDE drives, I decided
to go that route. I have been working with several hard drives from
Quantum Corp. Quantum is a leading manufacturer of hard drives for
both IBM and Macintosh. In addition, they have a line of hard cards
for IBM. The drives are small, quiet, and efficient. Using the
included software, I set up, and formatted a 240MB hard drive in
less than 5 minutes.
Quantum drives come with a driver for DOS, in case your system does
not support the drive, and a driver for Windows, that allows you to
access, and use, the 32-bit disk access of Windows. All of these
operations are hands-off. What I mean is, you run INSTALL or SETUP,
and the program makes all the changes necessary. No need for you to
do anything manually. It is a quick and painless procedure. Adding a
second hard drive was just as easy. I did have to remove one jumper
from the second drive before installation. I do recommend, if you
are in the market for a second hard drive, to get one from the same
manufacturer. I was so pleased with the original drive I had, that I
purchased a second Quantum. This does make everything much easier.
Quantum has several product lines:
The ProDrive half-height products offer capacities from 425
megabytes to 1.225 gigabytes.
The ProDrive LPS products provide 52 to 525 megabytes of formatted
capacity in a one-inch, 3.5" form factor. These low profile drives
feature average typical seek times of 10ms or less.
The ProDrive ELS products are also one-inch, 3.5" form factor
drives. Capacities range from 42 to 170 megabytes and have average
seek times as fast as 17ms.
All three of Quantum's 3.5" drive families are available with
embedded AT-BUS or SCSI/SCSI-2 controllers and include innovative
features such as DisCache, Quantum's proprietary read caching
firmware.
In addition, Quantum makes removable hard disks, drives for
notebooks, HardCard EZ, and mass storage subsystems for Apple
Macintosh. All drives have a rated MTBF of 100,000 to 350,000 hours.
I currently use the LPS240, and the ELS170. Both perform up to my
expectations.
I used to associate a hard drive with Seagate. They seemed to be the
standard. But, Quantum, being one of the top three manufacturers, is
definitely striving to be number one. If these drives are an omen of
things to come, they have a very good shot at it.
Product Information
Hard Drives
HardCards EZ
Passport XL
Go-Drive
List Price -- N/A
Quantum Corp.
500 McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, CA 95035
800-624-5545