tps@chem.ucsd.edu (Tom Stockfisch) (08/17/89)
Has anyone had experience adding a readable/writeable optical disk to any of
the 4D series? How is reliability?
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|| Tom Stockfisch, UCSD Chemistry tps@chem.ucsd.edumarkb@denali.sgi.com (Mark Bradley) (08/17/89)
In article <520@chem.ucsd.EDU>, tps@chem.ucsd.edu (Tom Stockfisch) writes: > Has anyone had experience adding a readable/writeable optical disk to any of > the 4D series? How is reliability? > -- > > || Tom Stockfisch, UCSD Chemistry tps@chem.ucsd.edu I believe you are asking about erasable optical drives on the 4D, as opposed to WORM, which are readable and writable too. (Erasable = Rewritable = MO (a.k.a. Magneto-Optical)) (WORM = Write Once, Read Many _times_) The answer from SGI is "Not yet." Probably many readers of this group have seen advertisements from the likes of HP and DEC (and NeXT, of course) re- garding availability of such products on workstations. SGI is not in a pos- ition to have the likes of Sony 'in our back pockets', so to speak, hence we have not been privy to the earliest iterations of such products which would have allowed us to offer the same product in an identical time frame. We are not first in offering THIS product, but we will have a better one when it finally is a product. Please don't ask when we will offer this, as we don't know yet. I have had units on order for quite some time and continue to be told "Any day now...". As for WORM's, please ask your salesperson for information. We have one or two independent vendors that offer good products (both hardware and software) that have been ported to our 4D systems. Your salesperson will be able to provide the information to you for these. markb -- Mark Bradley "Faster, faster, until the thrill of IO Subsystems speed overcomes the fear of death." Silicon Graphics Computer Systems Mountain View, CA ---Hunter S. Thompson
olson@anchor.sgi.com (Dave Olson) (08/18/89)
I can provide the negative information that the sony C501 optical disk will NOT work with it's current firmware on ANY of the 4D machines with any software release. It turns out that it will only work correctly if the driver does not support disconnect / reselect. The c501 does appear to work in a non-disconnect environment, but it's performance is VERY poor. You can get about 120K on writes, and about 210K sec on reads. It's also a very expensive drive... Unless you absolutely need large capacity removable media for file systems, it looks like optical write many drives are a loss. For archival purposes, it looks like DAT's are much more cost effective, while still having *relatively* fast random access. As far as capacity goes, you only get about 330Mb per side on the optical anyway, and it's more expensive than 760Mb SCSI drives. Dave Olson It's important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out. -- Stephen A. Kallis, Jr.
blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV ("Brent L. Bates AAD/TAB MS294 x42854") (08/18/89)
What about the Introl Sterling 650E, the (Magneto-Optical, this is the first time I have ever seen anyone name this correctly) Optical Disk? As well as ther WORM drives? I was given that impression that these are SGI "approved" devices. Is that incorrect? -- Brent L. Bates NASA-Langley Research Center M.S. 294 Hampton, Virginia 23665-5225 (804) 864-2854 E-mail: blbates@aero4.larc.nasa.gov or blbates@aero2.larc.nasa.gov
blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV ("Brent L. Bates AAD/TAB MS294 x42854") (08/18/89)
I don't know about the interfacing problems, but I thought the last time I looked at the price for MO and WORM drives they looked very competive as far as Mb/$, when compared against a regular magnetic disk (especially if the magnetic disk is purchased from SGI). Especially since you can use multiple disks in the MO and WORM drives. Also, they ARE random access. It sounds rather ridiculous to me to call a DAT a random access device. WORM drives look very promising if you need fast access to large permanent archives. -- Brent L. Bates NASA-Langley Research Center M.S. 294 Hampton, Virginia 23665-5225 (804) 864-2854 E-mail: blbates@aero4.larc.nasa.gov or blbates@aero2.larc.nasa.gov
piplani@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Michael Piplani) (08/18/89)
We are going to get the INTROL erasable optical drive installed on/in our Personal Iris this wednesday 8/23 I will report to you all how it works. We plan on storing computerized tomography data (ct scans) with it. A typical exam is ~50M, so we have great expectations. Michael Piplani Cornell/Hospital for Special Surgery Program Biomechanics internet: piplani@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu bitnet: piplani@crnlimap.bitnet ICBM: 42.4402 76.4950 nynex: (607) 255-9101
markb@denali.sgi.com (Mark Bradley) (08/19/89)
In article <8908181442.AA10702@aero4.larc.nasa.gov>, blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV ("Brent L. Bates AAD/TAB MS294 x42854") writes: > > What about the Introl Sterling 650E, the (Magneto-Optical, this is > the first time I have ever seen anyone name this correctly) Optical Disk? > As well as ther WORM drives? I was given that impression that these are > SGI "approved" devices. Is that incorrect? > -- > Yes, that is incorrect. These may or may not work. Introl may or may not know. Or it might depend on the system. I do not know what our relation- ship with Introl is, either. I do know that no one in SGI's engineering org- anization has worked on this product directly, and certainly not to the level where it is 'blessed'. markb -- Mark Bradley "Faster, faster, until the thrill of IO Subsystems speed overcomes the fear of death." Silicon Graphics Computer Systems Mountain View, CA ---Hunter S. Thompson
markb@denali.sgi.com (Mark Bradley) (08/19/89)
In article <8908181458.AA10756@aero4.larc.nasa.gov>, blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV ("Brent L. Bates AAD/TAB MS294 x42854") writes: > > I don't know about the interfacing problems, but I thought the > last time I looked at the price for MO and WORM drives they looked > very competive as far as Mb/$, when compared against a regular > magnetic disk (especially if the magnetic disk is purchased from > SGI). Especially since you can use multiple disks in the > MO and WORM drives. Also, they ARE random access. It sounds > rather ridiculous to me to call a DAT a random access device. > WORM drives look very promising if you need fast access to large > permanent archives. > -- It is not ridiculous at all. They were designed to be random access by virtue of directory structures resident on tape so that the drive will 'know' where to go for the data. There are 2 different approaches to getting this capability. One is the Sony/HP DDS format and the other is the Hitachi/Maxell format. Both have their benefits, although the Hitachi requires a formatting of the tape media, much like the formatting of disk drive media. And talk about cost/MB. I believe that list price from some distributors will be <$5K for 1.2 GB. markb -- Mark Bradley "Faster, faster, until the thrill of IO Subsystems speed overcomes the fear of death." Silicon Graphics Computer Systems Mountain View, CA ---Hunter S. Thompson