Syquest founder ships 2GB Orb

Castleview ships to OEMs as Syquest goes under

Storage specialist Castlewood Systems has finally begun shipping its long-awaited Orb removable hard disk drive to OEMs and system builders. Orb offers a capacity of 2GB, magneto-resistive heads and an EIDE interface that transfers data at 12.2MBps sustained, the company said. Two external models will follow in January, one with a parallel port interface, the other an Ultra SCSI version. Castlewood was formed in 1996 by Syquest founder Syed Iftikar and quickly began promoting Orb. It promised to ship the drive quickly and offer it at a price well below rival products like Iomega's 1GB Jaz and Syquest's 1.5GB SyJet. Shipping around a year later than planned, but Orb will come in at $199.95 for the external models, less than both the 1GB and 2GB versions of Jaz. It's also faster -- the Iomega products' sustained data transfer rates are 6.6MBps and 8.7MBps, respectively. ORB cartridges will cost $29.95, roughly a quarter of the price of a single 2GB Jaz cartridge. ® See also
Iomega to update Zip to 250MB
Syquest finds buyer