Orb High-Density Drive Ships
New technology uses fewer moving parts for higher reliability.
by Peggy Watt, PC World
November 25, 1998, 2:15 p.m. PT
You can hold 2GB of data in your hand--enough to watch a three-and-a-half-hour movie. The Orb is a new superhigh-density 3.5-inch storage technology from Castlewood Systems that boasts higher reliability and a lower price than similar storage devices.
The external drive, including one disk, will list at $199.95 when it hits stores by the end of the year; extra disks cost $29.95 each.
Computer manufacturers Daewoo, Nspire Systems, Supercom, Pionex, Powmem, and Proview have already committed to shipping internal Orb drives with their systems.
The Pleasanton, California, startup unveiled the Orb at Comdex in 1997 and announced its release at Comdex Fall '98.
The technology was developed by Syed Iftikar, who founded leading storage companies SyQuest and Seagate. The Orb uses magneto-resistive head media, which stores more megabytes of data per inch than traditional storage media. The drive has simpler mechanisms than older drives and uses only three integrated circuits, so the failure rate is lower. Having fewer components also means the drives need less power.
You'll see the Orb in other electronics, such as audio and video players, set-top boxes, and even telephone systems, says David Swanson, Castlewood's director of marketing and OEM sales. The disk, which is slightly thicker than a 3.5-inch floppy disk, can transfer data at 12.2MB per second.
The Orb is available as an internal SCSI drive or external drive that supports either parallel port or SCSI connections. The external drives will be in retail outlets by the end of the year, according to the company
The hardware comes with a selection of software utilities, including a backup program with options for manual or automatic backup; management tools to write-protect the drive; and tools for partitioning and formatting.
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