Maxtor Corp, San Jose has lost its contract to supply Fremont NeXT Inc with 400Mb disk drives to competitor, Seagate Technology Corp, Scotts Valley: Seagate is to supply an unspecified number of ST1480N 3.5 disk drives for NeXTstation and NeXTcube desktop systems; the Seagate ST1480 provides 426Mb of storage with a 14mS average seek time, data transfer rates up to 25M-bits per second, and supposed mean-time-between failure rate of 150,000 hours – believe that and you’ll believe anything, because the thing hasn’t been around for a fraction that time; it is available with either a SCSI-2 or AT interface, and the price per unit is $1,950, although neither company is disclosing the price NeXT will pay; NeXT expects between 25% and 35% of its computers to contain Seagate drives; Maxtor is said to have experienced difficulties producing the new 3.5 form factor.
