Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV!blbates From: blbates@AERO4.LARC.NASA.GOV ("Brent L. Bates AAD/TAB MS294 x42854") Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: Optical Disk add-on Message-ID: <8908181458.AA10756@aero4.larc.nasa.gov> Date: 18 Aug 89 11:58:09 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 18 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