Five years ago: 3.5-inch hard drive supremacy under threat

French manufacturer Gigastorage International says its Stealth range of 5.25-inch E-IDE drives will be much faster than Quantum's Bigfoot line which has struggled to win big sales. However, while Bigfoot was aimed at entry-level systems, the Stealth will outperform today's fastest E-IDE 3.5-inch drives, according to the firm. The 3,600RPM Stealth offers a 256Kb RAM cache and an access time of under 11ms.

The drives are available in 1.08Gb and 2.56Gb capacities, priced about 10 per cent cheaper than 3.5-inch drives of equivalent capacity. 3Gb and 5.12Gb drives will be available from November.

UK distribution is through Woking, Surrey-based Storage Options and Supplies. The firm can be contacted by telephone on 01483-771555.