IBM Targets Audiophiles With New Removable Hard Drive; Plays digital music on notebook PCs - IBM Travelstar E - Product Announcement

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, Oct 18, 1999

IBM has announced a new device that allows mobile users to easily add an extra 10 gigabytes (GB) of hard drive capacity to their notebook PCs.

Travelstar E is a compact, lightweight device comprised of an IBM hard drive, rugged container and a cable that easily plugs into a standard PC Card slot in any notebook. Its introduction marks IBM's entrance into the marketplace for high-capacity external hard drive devices.

"This is a significant and strategic move for IBM, a company already successful in the mobile storage arena. IBM has now made it easier for people to upgrade their mobile storage as well as download music for the road. Travelstar E is very easy-to-install and easy-to-use," said David Uriu, director of IBM Mobile Storage Products. "This is plug-and-play at its best. No diskettes, CDs or additional power cords are needed with Travelstar E."

Travelstar E weighs less than a pound yet it can hold up to 10 GB, about the equivalent of 10,000 novels or 10 symphonies in high-fidelity sound.

Rigorous testing has shown Travelstar E is five times more rugged than a standard notebook hard drive. "Ruggedness is very important to users who travel a lot with their notebooks," said Uriu.

Mobile power users can benefit from Travelstar E because they can now do their most storage intensive computing on the road. It is designed for music and game enthusiasts, database users, Web creators, graphic artists and multimedia users.

Download Music from the Internet

There are three software programs bundled with Travelstar E. The first two are used for drive back-up and encryption. The third is RioPort.com's digital audio jukebox software that allows consumers to easily encode, organize, and download MP3 or Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) files from the Internet or a CD for playback on the PC or portable MP3 players.

Starting later this month, users can purchase 8 or 10 GB Travelstar E products for an estimated street price of $449 and $549 respectively by visiting http://www.ibm.com/harddrive or http://omnilinq.com/storage. For more information call 1-888-426-5214.

Travelstar E is initially scheduled for launch through distributors in the U.S. only.

Earlier this week, IBM announced it had set a new computer data storage world-record of 35.3 billion data bits per square inch on a magnetic hard disk -- a 75 percent increase over the 20-billion-bit milestone the company achieved less than five months ago. This new record is expected to lead to disk drives that could store three times more information than those available today.

IBM's hard disk drives for servers, desktop PCs, portable PCs and hand-held appliances received more than 20 awards worldwide in 1998. Also in that year, IBM had more data storage-related patents issued in the U.S. than any other major data storage product manufacturer. The company invented and shipped the first hard disk drive in 1956.