EZ 135 Drive
Encyclopedia
Hard disk platter
A hard-disk platter is a component of a hard-disk drive: it is the circular disk on which the magnetic data is stored. The rigid nature of the platters in a hard drive is what gives them their name . Hard drives typically have several platters which are mounted on the same spindle...
hard disk drive. It was introduced by SyQuest Technology
SyQuest Technology
SyQuest Technology, Inc., now known as SYQT, Inc., was an early entrant into the removable hard disk market for personal computers. The company was started in 1982 by Syed Iftikar; it was named partially after himself because of a company meeting wherein it was decided that "SyQuest" ought to be a...
in 1995. It had a maximum capacity of 135 MB per disk.
A successor drive, known as the SyQuest EZFlyer was released in 1996. It was backwards compatible with the EZ 135 disks, and could utilize a higher capacity 230 MB disk.
Specifications
- Capacity: 135 MB
- Average Seek Time: 13.5ms
- Burst Transfer Rate: 4 MB/s
- Buffer Size: 64K
- Mechanism rated for: 200,000 hours
Interfaces
The EZ 135 Drive was available with several interfaces.The external drive was available with parallel
Parallel port
A parallel port is a type of interface found on computers for connecting various peripherals. In computing, a parallel port is a parallel communication physical interface. It is also known as a printer port or Centronics port...
or SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
interfaces.
The internal drive was available with IDE or SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
interfaces.
Pricing
At introduction, the EZ 135 Drive had the following prices (in US Dollars):- 135 MB Cartridge: $20.00
- EZ 135 Drive - External SCSI: $240.00
- EZ 135 Drive - Internal IDE: $200.00
Sales
The EZ 135 Drive was designed to be a competitor to the IomegaIomega
Iomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...
Zip drive
Zip drive
The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB....
. The original box listed several advantages:
- Much Faster
- Higher Capacity
- 2-Year Warranty
Additionally the removable hard disk cartridges included a 5-Year Warranty.
Unfortunately, the EZ 135 Drive was not backwards compatible with other SyQuest drives, and the original capacity was never increased beyond 135 MB. The Zip drive became popular and SyQuest's sales declined.