All: New Nomai 540 Removable Cartridge Drive will debut this month
Who is Nomai?
Nomai is a French storage solutions company incorporated in 1992. They began manufacturing Syquest compatible cartridges but have recently
produced removable cartridge based storage devices. Nomai's MCD 540
drive has been available for the past year in mostly European markets but with very little US presence. However, large mail order firms like
MicroWarehouse have recently started to carry their products. I called
MicroWarehouse today and they have the older MCD drive for $299.95
(no cartridge version) in stock.
Nomai is now planning to break into the US market with a new, compact
enclosure model of its MCD 540 drive aimed at the mid-range removable
storage market. Please check it out at:
nomai.com
Quick specs on the Nomai 540 are as follows:
- 540MB Storage Capacity utilizing the new PDC(see below) standard
- Transfer Rate up to 8.5 MB/s
- Access Time of 10 ms
- Backward read/write compatible with existing 3.5" Syquest 270M cartridges
- Both external and internal versions of the drive will be offered
- SCSI-2 Interface
- SCSI to Parallel Port Adapter Kit(for easy portability) available
- Bootable
- Compatible with the following Operating Systems:
Dos, Windows 3.X, Windows 95, Windows NT, MAC OS, OS/2
- $299 to $349 street price, 540MB cartridges sell for $50-65 each
- 540MB cartridges are sold in single pack, 2-pack and 5-pack
- Included PC & MAC cartridge will include 'Personal Backup Software',
SCSI Utilities and a Nomai 540 interactive presentation
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The following is an excerpt regarding the new PDC standard taken from both Nomai's and SyQuest's websites:
"Hannover, Germany (March 15, 1996) -- SyQuest Technology, the world leader in removable cartridge hard drive technology, together with Nomai, announced today at CeBIT a new standard for removable storage media: Power Disk Cartridge (PDC). Based on the removable Winchester
hard drive technology developed by SyQuest over the last 14 years,
the PDC standard has been created for single disk, 3.5" hard drive
cartridges
The Power Disk Cartridge standard provides a forward and
backward compatibility path for the users of 135MB, 270MB and 540MB
single disk, 3.5" removable hard drive cartridges, guaranteeing users
a future of compatibility beyond 540MB. In addition, the standard
makes the technology available to a broader base of suppliers.
Companies currently qualified to market 3.5" hard drive cartridges
incorporating the PDC standard symbol of qualification under their own
brand include KAO Infosystems, Maxwell, Polaroid and Xyratex.
The Power Disk Cartridge combines the speed of a modern fixed disk
drive with the data volume of a CD-ROM as well as the universal
exchangeability previously known only with floppy disks. Offering
high performance and flexibility, the PDC solves the incompatibility
problems of legacy storage systems and assures user investment
security. This user benefit has become particularly critical in the
last year and a half as sales for removable cartridge products have
exploded."
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I called Nomai's US sales office at 1-800-556-6624 to confirm the
new product's specs and availability. The sales person I talked to
reiterated to me that the Nomai 540 will match or exceed Iomega's
Jaz Drive in terms of read/write performance speed. The company has
already tested the drive with Windows `95 & NT, MAC OS with no software compatibility problems. Nomai's new product will be available at the end of this month with first shipments allocated to distributors, large mail order firms and VARs. The sales person told me that the product WILL NOT be available in retail stores like CompUSA until later months (around Q4 `96).
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My impressions on the Nomai product is mixed. To its credit
Nomai has created an inexpensive $299 540MB removable cartridge based
system similar to Iomega's JAZ drive in terms of design, performance
and ease of use. The new 540 is virtually identical to the older 540
MCD drive except exterior enclosure differences (more compact
footprint design). The drive's backward compatibility with existing
SyQuest 270 cartridges may attract a portion of the 2 million or so
existing SyQuest owners who want to move up to higher storage
capacities without losing their investment in existing cartridges. But
with the ever growing number of JAZ owners and users in the market
place Nomai faces a tough battle. Even the agressive $299 drive price
and its alliance with SyQuest for the PDC standard will not IMO prove
enough to catch up with Iomega. Once Iomega releases the next
generation ZIP and JAZ drive with higher capacities aimed at the
mid-range and high-end server/archival market it will further drive
down prices on current ZIP and Jaz thus making consumer appeal for
those products to increase even more. Industry analysts are expecting
a shakeout in the removable storage product market in `97. I think it
has already started...
Hyun |
