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Old 21st Jun 2019, 11:36 am   #1
ViperSan
Tetrode
 
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Manchester, UK
Posts: 81
Default The best data storage system that never took off.

So who here remembers PD/CD ?
I belive it first appeared in the early 90s ..pre win95
but was adopted by businesses rather than home use as it the drives were expensive ..as was the media.
It came in 2 flavours..
first SCSI interface and later IDE.
The units were capable of reading PD discs and CD discs.
PD was what grabbed my attention.
Phase change Dual
The media/discs were in cartridge form so as to limit exposure and avoid touching or damaging the pre sectored discs.
Most discs had a storage capacity of 650mb ..which was huge in its day.
Single Sided but rewriteable.
The basic principles were based on Magneto Optical and used a combination of Magnetic flux changes and laser light to write the data.
I have only one SCSI unit sadly ..but 3 IDE units.
So ..what made them special.
Well my early scsi unit was used to write data to many discs back in the days of win 95 ..and having recently checked the stored data (over 20 years later) ..there is NO data loss.
..and I suspect the data will last longer than I will.
A true 'set in stone' medium imo
Hard drives fail mechanically ..floppies and tape suffer bit rot and surface corrosion....modern discs that use dyes to store data are unreadable after 10 years...Yet the PD data retention appears to be indestructable ..barring physical damage.
The fore runner of the modern CD/DVD ...but expensive and made to last.
rgds
VS
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