wct%s16.es.llnl.gov@lll-lcc.llnl.gov (Bill Tapley 423-1131) (04/26/89)
We have been using Delta's SS-800W Optical Disk for almost two years now and have found it to be a reliable and convenient way to archive and access large volumes of data. Our optical disk drives are installed on 3/50's and 60's running 3.5. One side of an SS-800W optical cartridge will hold 374 Mb of data formatted as a unix file system; the rest of the 400 Mb per side is an indexing directory, allowing the user to describe the data that is on the disk and to position to the different file systems that may be on the disk. We use one partition (490 Cyls) of a WrenV scsi disk (also from Delta) to write to optical disk (via dd), filling one-half of one side of the optical cartridge. After burning the file system to disk, the disk can be mounted read-only and accessed just like any unix file system. When writing to optical disk, the scsi bus is real busy and it is best not to do anything else on the system during that time. While reading from optical disk, access is naturally slower than a magnetic disk, and the scsi bus is again busy and slows the system down. No problem as long as you don't install the optical disk on a server machine. We have not had any problems with the disks that we have archived data on, and have been using them allot. Our first optical disk drive, purchased nearly two years ago, failed after a few weeks (bad servo) but was repaired under warranty. We have had no problems with the other 5 disk drives that we are using. It is real convenient to have so much data available, direct access, by poping in the disk, running Delta's control program, and mounting the file system read-only. The control program is easy to use and well documented. It has been my experience that Delta Microsystems provides good supporting software and documentation with their products, and has excellent customer service support. wct