CMS expands line of plug-and-play hard drives for notebook computers; up to 1.3GB of storage for on-the-go computing.ANAHEIM, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 18, 1996--CMS Enhancements Inc., a leading supplier of mass storage solutions, Monday announced the industry's most comprehensive line of hard drive upgrades for popular notebook computers A laptop computer that weighs in a range from five to seven pounds. The term originated when laptops were routinely more than 10 pounds, and those that became lighter were placed in a special "notebook" category. In practice, notebook computer and laptop computer are synonymous. . The company's Easy Plug-Easy Go external and Remove'n'Replace internal removable hard disk (storage) removable hard disk - A type of magnetic disk, or possibly magneto-optical disk which is not permanently attached to the disk drive (not a fixed disk) but which can be taken out and replaced, allowing many disks to be used in the same drive. drives are designed to increase storage capacity for AST (AST Computer, Irvine, CA) A PC manufacturer founded in 1980 by Albert Wong, Safi Quershey and Tom Yuen (A, S and T). It offered a complete line of PCs that sold through its dealer channel. , Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. and Toshiba portable computers. Keeping pace with the ever-increasing need for larger storage capacities, CMS (1) See content management system and color management system. (2) (Conversational Monitor System) Software that provides interactive communications for IBM's VM operating system. continues to design cost-effective hard drive upgrade solutions for the leading portable computers being used in Fortune 2000 companies including the new IBM ThinkPad 701, Compaq's Contura and Elite 5000 and Toshiba's 2100 Series. The new drives enable mobile users to preserve and upgrade their current notebook computer investment by taking advantage of today's advances in storage capacity. "Mobile users can now store the larger applications, data and graphics files that are more and more commonly needed to conduct everyday business without incurring the significant cost of purchasing a new computer," said Ken Burke, senior vice president and general manager. Industry estimates put current notebook computer unit sales unit sales Sales measured in terms of physical units rather than dollars. Unit sales data are often used by financial analysts when evaluating the health of a company. at 25 percent of the overall PC market, representing a significant customer base which Burke considers to be a core business of CMS. "CMS is focused on responding to current and future Fortune 2000 notebook users by continuing to develop reliable, cost-effective storage solutions for this market," Burke said. Addressing the Needs of the Mobile Market CMS is committed to providing a wide range of storage solutions designed specifically to address the requirements of portable computers. In developing new hard drive solutions for portable computers, CMS must customize the drive to meet the unique form factor, firmware A category of memory chips that hold their content without electrical power. Firmware includes flash, ROM, PROM, EPROM and EEPROM technologies. When holding program instructions, firmware can be thought of as "hard software." See flash memory, ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM and FOTA. and physical connections of each model. Each hard drive is designed with specialized mounting hardware for secure and easy installation. Burke explained, "No two notebook computers are the same, which means we must allocate engineering time for each model. CMS is the only company dedicating the resources to offer the widest array of portable hard drive upgrades." He added, "These new hard drives, like all CMS products, are backed by CMS' quality design guaranteeing ease of installation and enhanced performance." The new line-up of removable hard drives expands the company's offerings for portable computer storage to 44 products. Upgrades Offer Enhanced Storage Capacities The new CMS upgrades include 810MB hard drives for Compaq Contura 400, 410 and 325; IBM ThinkPad 701; and Toshiba 2110, 2130 and 2150 notebook computers. Both 810MB and 1.3GB drives are offered for the following notebook computers: AST Ascentia 900, 910 and 950; AST Power Exec 433; AST Premium and Power Exec; Compaq Elite; Compaq LTE The Compaq LTE was a line of laptop computers made by Compaq, introduced in 1989. The first models, the Compaq LTE and the Compaq LTE 286, were among the first computers to be the size of a paper notebook, spurring the use of the term "notebook" to describe a smaller laptop. 386s/20 and Lite; Hewlett-Packard Omni 4000; IBM Thinkpad 360, 750 and 755; NEC Versa Versa Versatile System Architecture (Genrad) E, M, P, S and V; and Toshiba T3600, T4700, T4800 and Toshiba 1910, 1950 and 1960. The lightweight removable notebook drives are easily installed by simply plugging the unit into the notebook's removable hard drive port. Easy Plug-Easy Go removable drives (1) A device that spins, reads and writes an optical disc, hard magnetic disk or floppy (magnetic) disk, which is inserted into the unit by means of a drive tray or cartridge slot. Examples of removable drive media are CDs, DVDs, REV disks and Zip disks. See removable disk. have been designed for notebook computers with external ports, such as the Compaq Elite. Remove'n'Replace drives have been designed for notebook computers with internal ports, such as the IBM ThinkPad 755. The 810MB drives feature average seek times of 14ms and data transfer rates of up to 36Mbits per second to and from storage media and up to 8MB per second to and from buffer. The 1.3GB drives feature average seek times of 13ms and data transfer rates of 44.9Mbits per second to and from storage media and 16.6MB per second to and from buffer. The hard drive upgrades feature a mean time between failure of 300,000 hours, providing reliable high-performance storage. Future product releases will include 810MB and 1.3GB hard drives for Apple Powerbook 190 and 5300; IBM ThinkPad 760; NEC Versa 2000 and 4000; and Toshiba 400, 410 and 610 notebook computers. In addition, CMS is currently developing 2GB notebook drives, as well as a customized upgrade program. Pricing and Availability CMS' hard drive notebook upgrades are available immediately. All 810MB notebook drives are list priced at $802 and 1.3GB notebook drives are list priced at $968. The notebook drives are covered by a three-year warranty. All CMS products are distributed in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. through a channel of distributors and aggregators, and internationally through a select group of distributors. Company Information CMS Enhancements Inc. offers a broad line of mass storage products for servers, workstations and portable computers that are both cost-effective and reliable. With more than 3 million CMS storage solutions installed in 61 countries, CMS is dedicated to providing users with exactly the right drive for their system and application. The company's complete line of drives includes high capacity hard drives, CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). , tape, hard disk drives for notebooks, RAID and CD Recordables. All trademarks are the property of their respective companies. CONTACT: Lages & Associates Paula Bordigon/Marissa Jabczenski 714/453-8080 |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion