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Re[2]: [OM] Re: Syquest Sparq (OT)

Subject: Re[2]: [OM] Re: Syquest Sparq (OT)
From: Dave Haynie <dhaynie@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 22:35:46 -0500 (EST)
On Mon, 30 Nov 1998 17:29:46 -0500, John Hermanson <omtech@xxxxxxxxx> jammed 
all night, and by sunrise was overheard remarking:

> The SparQ 1 gig discs are  about 3.4 cents  per meg compared to zips price of
> 9.9 cents per meg.

The SparQ cost has been creeping up to around 5 cents per meg; they
raised the price a few months ago by about 1.5x. Of course, with recent
developments, it could be dropping again.  Anyway, you can contrast that
to under 0.5 cent per meg for CD-R backup (3.1 cents per meg for CD-RW),
and 0.85 cent per meg for tape (TR-4 style; DAT is way cheaper, but you
pay a whole lot up front for the drive), and under 2.5 cents per
megabyte for a normal large fixed hard drive (which you can
certainly mount in a removable shell). This is why neither cart-drive
type makes such a good backup solution. For other kinds of archivals,
where you're doing lots of editing, perhaps they make more sense. 

> The drive is also fast enough to run programs, but I'm
> wondering if the drive will resurface under a different name.

It all depends on the fate of Syquest. They could reorganize (they did
file chapter 11, I hear, not chapter 7 or 13), or they could be acquired,
if there's anyone out there looking to add this kind of product. If not,
expect the product, support, and media to die out fairly fast. There was
no second source for drives or media. 

>>  I had an EZ-135 drive though, which IMHO is much
> > better built and faster.

Well, EZ-135, like SparQ, is a cartridge hard disc drive, rather than a
super floppy like ZIP or LS-120. The advantage of EZ-135 was that, being
a hard disc, it was much faster than anything based on floppy technology,
though much easier to break when you drop it.

The main flaw with the EZ-135 was SyQuest's implementation of it. They
had been happily selling their 250MB-or-so 3.5" cart drives, fairly
expensive for drive and media, when the ZIP came out. ZIP was the right
product at the right time -- well marketed, made in consumer friendly
plastic, with price controlled hardware and cheap media. This scared
SyQuest, the result was the EZ-135. I expect they barely made a dime on
the hardware at first, it being derived from the 250MB version. The
discs, on the other hand, were at first at least fallouts of the 250MB
process -- basically junk, with too many defects to sell at 250MB. So
for awhile, the net result was very good for SyQuest. However, I think
they hit a snag when the 135MB drive became the overwhelming choice,
since all of a sudden, they had to make actually account for the discs
made.

This was probably the start of their downward sprial. Before ZIP,
SyQuest didn't have much competition in the cart-disc market, there was
not affordable CD-R, etc. 
--
Dave Haynie  | V.P. Technology, Met@box Infonet, AG |  http://www.metabox.de
Be Dev #2024 | NB851 Powered! | Amiga 2000, 3000, 4000, PIOS One



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