Olympus introduces high-performance PowerMO 230MB drive; industry's first 3.5-inch optical drive with 4,500 rpm rotational speed offers enhanced performance for optimum storage management

Business Wire, July 21, 1995

MELVILLE, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 1995--Olympus Image Systems Inc. Friday introduced a new member of the Deltis(TM) rewritable magneto-optical (MO) family under the PowerMO(TM) name.

Engineered for high-end graphics, pre-press, computer-aided design (CAD) and multimedia applications, the 3.5-inch PowerMO subsystem offers a capacity of 230 megabytes (MB) with an increased rotational speed of 4,500 rpm, the fastest in the industry. In addition, with this drive, Olympus remains the only 3.5-inch manufacturer to offer 1MB of on-board cache memory for easier and faster storage and retrieval of large files.

"This new drive is significantly faster than any other model on the market today," said Bill Boles, Olympus vice president of sales and marketing. "Its enhanced cache, combined with an increased rotational speed of 4,500 rpm, enables a higher sustained data transfer rate and a faster seek time. With these enhancements, the PowerMO subsystem is about 25 to 30 percent faster than the competition's offerings."

The new PowerMO subsystem offers a sustained read data transfer rate of up to 1.84MB of user data per second (2.61MB all bus data) and an average random access time of 26 milliseconds (ms). Additional features and benefits include:

- A SCSI LED indicator allows users to immediately diagnose breaks

in the SCSI chain.

- Built-in digital active SCSI termination, which is also

switchable, monitors signal lines precisely.

Because it is built-in, users need only to slide the switch on the back panel to operate, making it easy to use and eliminating loose parts.

Price Availability and Warranty

Single unit expected street pricing for the PowerMO 230 is $599 for the Mac platform, $689 for the DOS/Windows version. All models include driver/formatter software, a SCSI cable, one free cartridge and a two-year warranty. The DOS version includes a SCSI host adapter for a 16-bit ISA bus. The product will be available Aug. 1 through Olympus' network of authorized resellers and distributors.

Olympus will continue to market its Deltis 230MO drive with a 4,200 rpm rotational speed and 256 kilobytes (KB) cache at a street price of approximately $499. However, Boles said, "I expect that most customers will choose the higher performance PowerMO subsystem due to its significantly higher performance at a minimal price differential."

OEM Market

Olympus also sells the PowerMO 230 mechanism to qualified system manufacturers and integrators. The MOS320E version 3.3 features 256KB cache, while the MOS321E mechanism version 3.3 offers the 1MB cache. Both will be available directly from Olympus on Aug. 1.

The Market

MO storage is quickly becoming the storage of choice for high-end applications because of its increasingly low cost-per-megabyte portability and durability. In addition, the 230MB size has become an ISO standard, making the discs interchangeable among drives of different brands. It is also backward compatible (read, write, format) with earlier 128MB products.

Prices for 230MB optical drives and media have declined more than 40 percent over the last year, while performance has improved. For example, street prices have declined to about $20 each for a rewritable 230MB cartridge. Shipment levels for 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch form factor optical drives exceeded 600,000 units in 1994 according to industry analysts, and sales are expected to exceed 1 million units by 1996.

Olympus Image Systems Inc.

Olympus Image Systems Inc. (OISI) was formed by Olympus Optical Company Ltd. of Japan in 1985. One of the top three optical disk manufacturers worldwide, Olympus provides optical disk drives and subsystems for a range of needs, including removable data security, secondary storage and archiving. OISI also provides other computer peripherals including non-impact enterprise printers.

With headquarters in Tokyo, Olympus Optical Company Ltd. and its affiliates, are engaged in the manufacture and sale of opto-electronic systems, cameras, microscopes, endoscopes, micro-cassette tape recorders, clinical analyzers, as well as environmentally friendly cleaning chemicals and systems. The company has achieved worldwide recognition for its computer technology products, including ion and electron imaging printers, laser-optical pick-up systems and magneto-optical disk systems.

In March 1994, Olympus Optical announced the DELTIS brand name for its fast growing family of imaging and computer peripherals. The branding strategy was developed in part to help associate the Deltis name and the Olympus Optical Company name with the highly recognized Olympus identity as the company moves into the information technology market.

Olympus Image Systems is located at Two Corporate Center Dr., Melville, N.Y. 11747-3157.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Brand names and product names mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Olympus Image Systems

Dave Veilleux, 800/347-4027

or

Shafer Public Relations

Linda Waters, 800/503-1177