IBM Ships 4-Millionth Disk Drive Incorporating MR Head Technology

LAS VEGAS, NV, - November 15...IBM Corporation today announced that its
Storage Products Company has shipped its 4-millionth disk drive
incorporating advanced magneto-resistive (MR) head technology. IBM, the
industry leader in the development and implementation of MR head
technology, began shipping disk drives with MR head components in 1991
and, since early 1994, has been shipping MR head drives across its entire
product line.

MR technology permits data stored at very high areal densities (the amount
of data stored per square inch of magnetic disk surface) to be read
accurately. The resulting benefits to OEM and commercial customers include
the heightened disk drive capacity and performance demanded by new
applications, operating systems and data types such as video. Other
benefits include increased reliability due to the reduction in the number
of moving heads and disks required for given drive capacities.

"IBM's lead in implementing MR technology has resulted in its continued
ability to deliver the industry's highest capacity products," commented
Crawford Del Prete, director of International Data Corporation's Storage
Research Program. "For the past 24 months in particular, IBM has done an
excellent job of leveraging its technology into specific segments of the
Winchester disk drive marketplace. This is not an industry for the timid;
IBM is up the learning curve in integrating MR head technology, a curve
that competitors are currently climbing."

"Competitors will have a hard time matching IBM's quality standards for MR
heads," said Fred Wiele, vice president of product sales and support for
the IBM Storage Products Company, a unit of the IBM Storage Systems
Division. "To our knowledge, not a single failure has been reported for
the 40 million MR heads we have shipped in our hard disk drives.

"IBM's track record as a supplier of MR head disk drives to the market is
unmatched," said Wiele. "IBM has conquered the learning curve associated
with successful implementation. While other manufacturers struggle with
following IBM's lead, we are into our third generation of MR head
technology, and are putting our research and manufacturing prowess into
making disk drives more reliable.

"The breather filter we include in our 2.5 inch disk drives, the 'clam
shell' design of our high-end 3.5" drives, as well as the use of special
sealing paint to protect against chemical emissions are all evidence of
the reliability features IBM includes with its drives that the technology
followers don't."

In addition to the continuing focus on reliability, the IBM Storage Systems
Division is also developing, in cooperation with IBM's Almaden Research
Center, "giant" MR head technology which will be used in disk drive
products by the turn of the century to store information times 10 times
more densely than is possible today.

In October, IBM announced three new families of 2.5-and 3.5-inch disk
drives that leverage MR technology to deliver unparalleled data storage
capacity, reliability and performance across a broad spectrum of systems:

 o    the Travelstar LP family, offering the highest-capacity,
      highest performance 2.5-inch low-profile drive in production
      anywhere.  This is a 1/2-inch high, 720 megabyte (MB) drive for
      use in notebook and sub-notebook computers, with an 11.1
      megabyte per second (MB/sec) data transfer rate and the ability
      to withstand non-operational shock loads of up to 500Gs (500
      times the force of gravity).

 o    the Deskstar XP family, a selection of 1-inch high 3.5-inch
      drives that includes a 1.08 gigabyte (GB) model with only two
      platters.  The Deskstar XP family gives users of high-end
      desktop systems and entry-level servers and workstations the
      speed and transfer rates of high-end workstation drives and
      network servers at affordable prices.

 o    the Ultrastar2, a high-speed 5400 RPM drive with a 10.8 GB
      capacity (the highest capacity yet announced for a 3.5-inch
      drive) and the Ultrastar2 XP, a 7200 RPM, 8.7 GB
      high-performance drive.  Both drives are only 1.6 inches high
      and are targeted for the high-end server marketplace.

IBM disk drives, as well as the company's optical drives and tape products,
are on display at COMDEX this week at booth #L1062 in the Las Vegas
Convention Center.

IBM is a world-wide developer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range
of storage products for OEM computer makers, for use in IBM computing
systems, and for sale in commercial distribution channels. IBM storage
products are available from a wide range of commercial resellers and from
IBM, under the Options by IBM brand name.

 ============================================================
 From the  'New Product Information'  Electronic News Service
 on AOL (Keyword = New Products) & Delphi (GO BUSINESS PROD)
 ============================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the 
 company or author mentioned. For additional details, please 
 contact them directly at the address/phone number indicated.
 OmniPage Pro is now used for converting all printed input! 
 ============================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  U.S.A.
 Email: RBakerPC (AOL/Delphi), rbakerpc@delphi.com (Internet)
 ============================================================
