History (1988): 44MB on Iomega Bernoulli Box

Iomega Corporation (Roy, UT) introduced the Bernoulli Box 11/44, a 44MB drive that uses barium ferrite media to offer twice the capacity of Iomega’s standard Bernoulli Boxes and a faster access time.

Barium ferrite makes possible bit densities of 31.2Mb/square inch, greater than the 13.5Mb available with traditional disk media.

Combined with a disk caching process, the new drive offers an improved average access time of 32ms and a 5.54Mb/s continuous transfer rate.

With a special software caching, PC-Kwik, developed jointly with Multisoft Corporation, the effective average access time drops to 22ms, according to the company.

The drive offers an MTBF rate of 25,000 hours, and the cartridge has been designed to withstand 1,000G.

Box 11/44 comes in both single- and dual-drive versions, and as either internal or external subsystems.

The system will be available for IBM PC and PS/2 computers and for Apple Macintosh computers, and supports the MS-DOS, OS/2, Unix and Apple Multifinder operating systems as well as Novell’s NetWare LAN OS.

Iomega’s file transfer software (Bernoulli File Exchange) allows connectivity between a Bernoulli Box or Macintosh and one for an IBM computer.

The 11/44 will be available for IBM’s PCs and PS/2s in February 1989 and for Apple Macintosh computers in March 1989.

For IBM computers it is priced as follows: $1,399 for a one-drive internal subsystem, $1,799 for a one-drive external subsystem, and $2,799 for a two-drive external subsystem. An additional $200 is required for Bernoulli Box 11/44 external subsystems for Macintosh computers, which include special SCSI connectors, cables and software.

Each cartridge costs $125 and has a capacity of 44MB. Iomega’s subsystems and cartridge products have a one-year warranty.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue ≠11, volume ≠1, published on December 1988.