La Cie unveils storage options
La Cie Ltd. last week at Macworld Expo took the wraps off new hard drives, removable-media mechanisms, tape libraries and a software package, all due by the end of the month.
The company announced the Jaz 2GB, a new, $649 Jaz drive that will handle cartridges in capacities of 1 and 2 Gbytes. Users will have the choice of the familiar d2 enclosure and EKO, La Cie's new compact case.
The company also unveiled a 9-Gbyte, 10,000-rpm Wide Ultra SCSI-3 drive based on a mechanism from IBM Corp. Internal and external versions cost $1,199 and $1,279, respectively. La Cie said purchasers can add a single-channel Wide Ultra PCI card for $239; a two-channel version costs $499.
Meanwhile, a new 9-Gbyte, 7,200-rpm drive will cost $899 and $979, respectively, for internal and external versions.
La Cie's new 8-Gbyte entry-level Ultra SCSI-3 hard drive will have a spindle speed of 5,400 rpm. The internal model will be priced at $599, while the external version will cost $679 and come in Apple-style, d2 and EKO enclosures.
Boosting its high-capacity range, La Cie showed a new 7,200-rpm Wide Ultra drive with a capacity of 18 Gbytes. Available only in the d2 case, the drive will cost $1,999; the internal version is $100 less.
In addition, the company unveiled two CD-ROM towers, which come bundled with a SCSI accelerator PCI card. One model with seven 24x drives will cost $1,995. The other system, the Power Changer, will carry a set of seven 16x drives, each of which can hold up to five discs. It will be priced at $2,995.
La Cie also showed its $5,995 AIT Tape Loader, which can hold as many as four 50-Gbyte Advanced Intelligent Tape standard cartridges. In addition, the company announced a new $469 tape drive that supports the Travan 4 format.
Silverlining, La Cie's $99 formatting utility, was updated last week to support Mac OS 8.1's Mac OS Extended Format (see 01.05.98, Page 41). The company said users can download a free updater for previous versions at its Web site.
La Cie Ltd. of Hillsboro, Ore., can be reached at (503) 844-4500 or (800) 999-0143; fax (503) 844-4501; sales@lacie. com; http://www.lacie.com.