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From: chapman@eris.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.periphs
Subject: Re: WORM drives
Message-ID: <4312@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 02:08:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: jade.4312
Posted: Thu Jul  9 02:08:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 17:52:33 EDT
References: <35f03059.d5c4@apollo.uucp>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: chapman@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Brent Chapman)
Organization: UNIXversity of California at Berkeley
Lines: 36

In article <35f03059.d5c4@apollo.uucp> tbg@apollo.uucp (Tom Gross) writes:

]I would be curious to know what applications people are contemplating
]for WORM drives.  Especially on GSA contracts.  I think my old man would
]have access to this technology for an SBIR government contract, but we
]need a problem for this wonderous solution.  I guess what I want to know
]is, are people thinking of perhaps using WORM drives to collect data
]from the field, or just a way of distributing the Encyclopedia
]Britannica? 
]
]/tom

I find the thought of having to change backup media only once per week
strangely appealing...  :-)

Seriously, as part of our business, my company collects massive amounts
of financial data (exchange rates, option prices, interest rates, etc.).
For our purposes, the most recent data is the most important (for example,
for a certain "series", we might have the values at five minute intervals 
for the last three days, at 1 hour intervals for values from 3 to 15 days
old, and at 4 hour intervals for all values greater than 15 days old).
Periodically, we go through and "prune" the data (given the above instance,
when data is three days old, we average 12 values taken five minutes apart 
into a single "hourly" figure).  We'd like to save the raw data before
we prune, however, and have it available for later use.  Currently, there's
no really feasible way to do that.  WORM drives, however, have a wonderful
potential for us.

Does anyone know of WORM drives for Suns?


-Brent
--
Brent Chapman

chapman@mica.berkeley.edu	or	ucbvax!mica!chapman