Nuts & Volts - February 2004

TechKnowledgey 2004

Among the vintage drives to be displayed in the Museum of Hard Disc Drives is the

classic Seagate ST225. Photo courtesy of Randolph Byrnes.

Ontrack ( www.mbm.com.pl), the data recovery company that came up with the idea. According to a press release, the Museum of Hard Disc Drives "will popularize the history of dynamic development of informatics among PC users."

Three of the items on display were magnanimously donated by Seagate Technology ( www.seagate.

com): ST4038, ST225, and ST125 drives. Developed in 1985, the ST4038 was used in the IBM PC AT and had a capacity of 38 MB.

According to Marcin Musil, managing director of MBM Ontrack, "We are glad that our initiative has gained the support of the biggest manufacturer of hard disc drives. The drives donated to the Museum by Seagate are the most precious exhibits of our collection." "Precious," of course, is a relative term.

As I write this, a vintage ST225 drive and controller card is for sale on Ebay with an initial price of $10.00, so far attracting no bids. Perhaps our readers can provide additional assistance.

If anyone from the museum reads this, please note that I am willing to donate a magnificent 44 MB Syquest cartridge from my private collection (as long as I don't have to pay the postage). It's great for propping up a wobbly table, and I would rate its current value at nearly $1.37.

HP Continues to Gain Workstation Market Share

Hewlett-Packard ( www.hp.com) captured 27 percent of the world-wide workstation market for units shipped for the third quarter of calendar year 2003, according to a report released recently by research group IDC. In the US personal workstation segment, HP grew at twice the rate of the overall market with a 17. 5 percent increase.

HP recognized year-to-year growth in the same market with an increase of 24 percent, leading all other workstation vendors ranked by IDC. In Western Europe, HP continues to be the no. 1 workstation provider with sequential growth of 24 percent.

HP recognized the most growth within the Intel® Pentium® 4 and Xeon based personal workstation segment, but it increased units shipped across its entire workstation line. NV

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