History (1994): Seagate in PRML and Glass Disks for First Time

Seagate Technology (Scotts Valley, CA) is adding the 420MB Marathon or ST9420AG to its range of 2.5-inch HDDs.

The 12.5mm thick unit is the first Seagate’s drive to incorporate PRML read channel technology and is also the first product from the company built with glass substrate disks.

The drive also sports a Fast ATA-2 standard interface and transfer rate speeds up to 16.6MB/s in systems with VESA or PCI local bus.

The 2-platter device features a 4500rpm disk rotational speed, which is faster than previous Marathon models and has a 16ms average access time.

Operating shock is 1,00G, non-operating shock being 300G.

The ST9420AG will be available for evaluation and production in 1995, priced at $495.

This article is an abstract of news published on the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter on issue 82, published on November 1994.