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Floppy Drive Will Handle 200MB Disks

Due next summer from Sony and Fuji, HiFD drive can transfer data at up to 3.6MB per second and it reads and writes current 3.5-inch disks.

By Brian McWilliams, PCWorld   

The new HiFD drive will still be able to read and write 3.5-inch floppies. And using new high-capacity media from Fuji, the HiFD can store up to 200MB per disk. The drive also boasts a transfer rate of 3.6MB per second--a rate that would have made some hard drives proud just a couple years ago.

According to Jeff Ash, director of marketing for Fuji%squots computer products division, the two firms hope to convince personal computer OEMs to include the HiFD in new systems next year.

%dquotWe see this as hope for the next internal standard because of its backward compatibility,%dquot said Ash.

Jim Hamilton, an analyst with market research firm Freeman Associates, says the specs on the HiFD are impressive and stack up very well against the Zip drive from Iomega and the LS-120 from OR Technology. Those two offerings have only a small fraction of the transfer rate and barely over half the capacity of the HiFD.

But the price for the HiFD is being played close to the vest by Sony and Fuji. Hamilton expects they won%squott publicly disclose pricing until its too late for Iomega and OR to make a competitive response.

%dquotIn order for this technology to be ubiquitous they%squotre going to need to get it below $50. If you%squotre going to make a widespread replacement for floppy drives, its going to be driven by price,%dquot said Hamilton.

Sony is talking now with PC vendors and other drive manufacturers in hopes of making the HiFD the new standard for removable PC storage. If all goes well, the HiFD will be available by summer 1998.