uantum stays loyal to Ultra SCSI 2

uantum has outlined its hard drive strategy, claiming that the Ultra SCSI 2 interface is likely to remain a major technology well into the next century, despite the rise of Fibre Channel.

And IDE technology, which is used in the majority of desktops today, will also continue to be supported in the future, according to Phil Worsdale, senior field applications engineer at Quantum UK.

"We want to concentrate our resources on Parallel SCSI. It will be dominant up to 2003 at least," he said.

Worsdale believes Ultra2 SCSI will be the leading technology even in the enterprise sector, but the data transfer speeds large users require are forcing the major players to develop the Ultra3 version of SCSI already, which will push Fibre Channel even further up the food chain.

"Fibre Channel is only cost-effective at a very high level," he said.

Worsdale admitted Seagate's entry into the market later this year could change that. "Seagate is muddying the waters by saying Fibre Channel prices will be the same as SCSI," he said.