Competition for the Microdrive

Ritek, the Tiwanese manufacturer of the optical media, has announced that they are to take on the might of IBM. They have today announced the MicroStor, a 1GB hard disk in a Type II CompactFlash form. It will retail for $200-250, which is approximately half the price of the IBM Microdrive.

CF-Type HDD to Compete Against IBM's Microdrive

June 5, 2001 (TAIPEI) -- Ritek Corp.'s HDD called "MicroStor," a small hard disk drive (HDD) that will compete against IBM Corp.'s Microdrive compact HDD, will debut in the second half of 2001.

Ritek's MicroStor is based on the Type-II CompactFlash (CF) specification and has a capacity of 1GB.

"The product will ship in third or fourth quarter of 2001 with a target retail price of half of IBM's 1GB Microdrive selling for US$400-500," said Thomas Su, CEO of Ritek's subsidiary, U.S.-based MicroStor Corp.

In its booth, Ritek showed a demonstration in which a large motion picture file was read directly from the prototype MicroStor HDD and viewed on a PC. The disc of the MicroStor HDD is Ritek's original product and, like IBM's Microdrive, is about an inch in diameter.

Also, the firm is exhibiting a small optical media called "Data Play," which Ritek is planning to supply to U.S.-based DataPlay Inc. on an OEM basis. Data Play is an optical media with a 500MB capacity that can be used only with the DataPlay's own drive. The company's plan is to ship
write-once media in 2001 and rewritable media in 2002. The price will be about U.S. $15 per media. It will be used for a mobile music player. The media's capacity will be enhanced to 1GB in 2002.

Click here for Ritek.com

Thanks to reader Vladimir Tomberg for the story.