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.c The Associated Press



NEW YORK (Nov. 10) - International Business Machines Corp. has managed to

develop a disk drive for personal computers with up to eight times more

storage capacity than new desktops today.



IBM said the technology will enable PC users to store the equivalent of 16

pickup trucks full of printed information. It also improves how computers run

software featuring video, picture and sound.



The hard drives could help reduce PC prices by enabling computers to store

the same amount of information more cheaply.



The Armonk, N.Y. company on Monday will announce drives with storage capacity

of up to 16.8 gigabytes. Today's least expensive PCs, $1,000 and under, now

have about 2 gigabytes of space to store data, while PCs above $2,000 hold 6

gigabytes or more.



IBM designed a new type of magnetoresistive recording head, which puts

digital data onto hard drive discs and are the size of the head of a pin. The

so-called ''Giant Magnetoresistive'' heads will be built into PCs starting

next month but won't appear in most PCs until early next year.



Hard drives are magnetic discs that store bits of digital information that

are understood, or processed, by the computer's main processing chip.



IBM uses its disk drives for PCs it makes and also sells them to other PC

makers.



 AP-NY-11-09-97 1830EST





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