Quantum Bigfoot

The Bigfoot series was notable for deviating from the standard form factor for hard drives.

The main rationale behind the use of the 5.25-inch form factor was that the typical PC user already owns cases that supports 5.25-inch drives, and by using lower data densities and fewer moving parts, Quantum was able to deliver the products at lower prices, thus more competitively.

[5] Over time, increased prices combined with stiff competition caused sales of the drives to decline, leading to the line being discontinued in the late 1990s.

[6] Bigfoot drives were produced by a variety of different plants in Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and other locations.

These drives offered only ATA-2 PIO Mode 4 and DMA mode 2 support (16.6 MB/s) and had an average seek time of 15 ms. Actual transfer rate from the platters was much lower, measured at 813 KB/s by PC Magazine using Disk WinMark 96, slower than a same-capacity/similar-capacity Quantum Fireball (3.5") drive, which delivered 1170 KB/s.

[10] Bigfoot CY drives shared the characteristics of a 3,600 RPM spindle speed and an ATA-2 interface connection.

The 12 GB model is noteworthy for being the first hard drive to attain a capacity in the double digits of gigabytes.