kruger@16bits.dec.com (Hart for CCCP chief in '88) (01/15/88)
I believe Maxtor's unit does 2.5MBits/sec, which is quite a bit more than 70Kbytes/sec. And saying that the tracks aren't perfectly centered etc. just means that tolerances must be tightened, nothing more. It is doable, and it will be done. There are no technical reasons making a fast drive impossible. Right now though, there is very little impetus for doing so because hard disks are getting bigger, fast. They are so much faster that they are still muchmore popular. As hard disk performance hits a speed ceiling, interest will peak.When it reaches a desity ceiling, then optical WRITEABLE disks will be interesting again. Right now, optical is basically a substitute for tape backup,which takes almost no advantage of its random access properties. dov