Half-Height Winchester Uses Thin-Film Disks

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Byte Magazine

March 1983

Seagate Technology unveiled a half-height 5 1/4-inch micro Winchester disk drive at the Fall Comdex. The ST206 drive uses ferrite read/write heads for higher frequency response and a flux density of 9074 fcpi (flux changes per inch). Its thin-film plated media are capable of storing 6.38 megabytes of unformatted data or 5 megabytes of formatted data. Fully compatible with the industry-standard ST506 interface, the ST206 was designed to be a companion to half-height floppy-disk drives in single-slot intelligent terminals and portable computers.

Technical specifications include a 5-megabitper-second transfer rate, average access time of 85 milliseconds (including settling) using a split-band positioner and a steppe-rmotor-driven actuator, a stored-data density of 10,416 bytes per track (unformatted), and 9.33-millisecond average latency. Dimensions for the ST206 are 1.625 by 5.75 by 8 inches.

In 500-unit lots, the ST206 costs $745. Seagate Technology is located at 360 El Pueblo Rd., Scotts Valley, CA 95066, (408) 438-6550.