zhou@brazil.psych.purdue.edu (Albert Zhou) (01/01/91)
I am aware of the existence of laser disk for microcomputer. Information can
be read from it as well as written onto it. Only it cannot be rewritten. I
am also aware that such kind of laser disks have much higher memory capacity
than hard disk. However, I would like to have more exact information on the
following issues:
(1) How much memory can a laser disk have anyway? 1000 MB? 10,000 MB? or
even higher?
(2) What is its price range? $500? $1,000? or higher?
(3) Is there a DOS version that supports laser disk? I imagine there
might be some problem for existing file management system, since it doesn't
maintain more than one backup copy for each file.
(4) What about speed? Does it respond much faster than hard disk?
?jon_sree@world.std.com (Jon Sreekanth) (01/03/91)
In article <11639@j.cc.purdue.edu> zhou@brazil.psych.purdue.edu (Albert Zhou) writes:
I am aware of the existence of laser disk for microcomputer. Information can
be read from it as well as written onto it. Only it cannot be rewritten. I
I assume you're talking about a "WORM", Write Once Read Many. Capacities
are 500 M Byte upwards. There are also true erasable optical drives.
Look through Computer Shopper's index, there are about 4 advertisers listed
in the Jan 91 issue. One of them, Trans International, 800-783-2120 or
714-634-1583, has a Ricoh erasable drive for $3000, 650 meg bytes,
media is $300. A Toshiba 900 meg WORM is for $3100, media cost is not
mentioned.
(4) What about speed? Does it respond much faster than hard disk?
Seek times are worse than hard disks by a factor of 10 or more. Data rates
are probably lower (I'm not sure). They are good for on-line, archival
storage, not replacements for hard disks, yet.
/ Jon Sreekanth
Assabet Valley Microsystems Fax and PC products
346 Lincoln St #722, Marlboro, MA 01752 508-562-0722
jon_sree@world.std.com