Monday, February 19, 2001		On Hardware

Floppies get a new lease of life

THOSE floppy disks, considered obsolete in the fast changing world of IT, may get a new lease of life.Matsushita-Kotobuki Electronics Industries, better known in the USA as Panasonic, has developed a new Super Disk drive that can punch up to 32 MB of data onto a standard 1.44 MB floppy diskette.

High-density floppies will get a new lease on life next year as the next generation Super Disk drive will give high-density 1.44 MB floppy users the ability to store up to 32 MB on one disk.

The product uses Matsushita’s new FD32MB technology. Floppy disks contain 80 tracks; FD 32 MB expands this up to 777.

The DVDs and CDs have sounded the death knell of floppies, as they are inept to hold enough data. These have been discarded as a thing of past but with the coming in of new technology these reformed floppies could be as resilient as the old ones.

The technology works by increasing the density of each track on the HD floppy by using the Super Disc magnetic head for reading, and using the conventional magnetic head for writing data.

Information available indicates instead of the tracks on a floppy being 187.5 microns, the new technology reformats the diskette with a track pitch of only 18.8 microns. A micron is one millionth of a meter, or one micrometer, which is approximately 1/25,000 of an inch.

The number of sectors per track is increased between 36 and 53 sectors, compared with its current number of 18 sectors, and its memory capacity per track can be raised from 9.2 KB-18.4 KB to 27 KB.

Those skeptical, however feel that more than one Super Disk drives would be needed to save information on 32 MB floppy drive. On the other hand to burn a CD for just a little bit of data seems like a waste.

The FD32MB technology will be available as a stand-alone product by middle of this year. The company plans to put the drive on sale next week in Japan, with the price anywhere between $ 80 and $ 90. The company is expected to produce nearly 50,000 units per month next year. The new technology could provide a bit of shot in the arm for the floppy drive business. With optical drives and media going down in price every week, whether it will capture a huge market is yet to be seen.

The FD32MB technology will be part of all 240MB/120MB SuperDisk drives to be marketed in the future. Matsushita is already showing the new drives and FD32MB technology to computer makers and intends on releasing the product to be included in new PCs and as a standalone product probably by July of next year, sources tell MacCentral.

Matsushita is expected to produce about 50,000 units per month next year. Imation Corp., who previously sold the full-height, 120MB SuperDisk for Mac, has yet to decide if it will become an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of the new 240MB model.

— TNS