TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced three new CD-ROM drives that bring new levels of high-speed operation to both the portable and desktop computing environments. The XM-1702B super-slim drive stands only 12.7mm high, ideal for portable computers, and offers a maximum 24-time rotational speed. The XM-6202B, with ATAPI interface, and XM-6201B, with SCSI interface, stand 41.5mm high and achieve a maximum 32-time rotational speed.

The CD-ROM drive market is surging, with 30% growth to a worldwide market of over 62 million units projected for this calendar year. The two-fold trend in drives is to better performance through higher transfer rates and to models with the slim lines that are a must for ever-smaller portable PCs -- without any loss of performance. Toshiba's latest drives meet both demands with state-of-the-art high-speed performance.

The XM-1702B is only 12.7(h)128(w)129(d) mm, dimensions achieved through high-density mounting, yet it offers a maximum 24-time rotational speed, thanks to a high-speed motor and pick-up and a dedicated system LSI especially designed for super-slim CD-ROM. This combination of advanced hardware results in the world's highest performance specs in a super-slim CD-ROM drive: a data-read rate of 3,600 kilobytes per second, a seek time of only 100 milliseconds and an access time of 110 milliseconds. Despite its fast rotational speed, the drive's low heat disc motor cuts power consumption to only 3.8W in average, while Toshiba's low vibration system overcomes the vibration problems common in CD-ROM drives with a high rotational speed CD-ROM.

The enhanced performance of XM-6202B and XM-6201B reflects their combination of a newly developed LSI, which speeds up the data read and transfer, with an enhanced drive motor. Both drives can read 4,800 kilobytes of data a second, and offer lightning-fast data access; XM-6202B has a seek time of 78 milliseconds and an access time of 83 milliseconds, while XM-6201B has a seek time of 85 milliseconds and an access time of 90 milliseconds. Both drives incorporate Toshiba's low vibration system.

All three drives can read CD-ROM, CD-R discs, and CD-RW (rewritable) discs. Samples are available from today for OEM and third party customers, at a price in Japan of 30,000 yen.

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