Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!island!hue
From: hue@island.uu.net (Johnathan Hue)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi
Subject: Questions about 130mm erasable MOD
Keywords: Magneto Optical Disk ISO SPARCstation
Message-ID: <1674@island.uu.net>
Date: 13 Jun 90 20:15:43 GMT
Organization: Island Graphics, Marin County, California
Lines: 40



I'm going to need a SCSI 130mm erasable magneto-optical disk drive here
soon, and I'm hoping someone out there might be able to answer a few
questions.

What I am going to do is attach the drive to a SPARCstation 1+ (running 4.0.3)
and write data on it, then move the media to a non-UNIX box to read it.  I
won't be putting a file system on the disk, but rather accessing it through
the block or raw disk interface and writing out files in the format required
by the other machine.

1) Does anyone have a recommendation for a drive manufacturer?  So far I know
   of Sony, Maxtor, and Ricoh.

2) Does anyone have a recommendation for a drive integrator?  So far I know of
   Artecon, Pinnacle, Introl, Bridgeway, and Delta.

3) Does anyone have a recommendation for a vendor?  I've looked in
   Sun Observer and there are dozens of distributors: Artecon, R-Squared,
   Workstations Plus, Introl, Falcon, Andataco, Western Scientific, Acropolis,
   to name a few.

4) Most important: The machine I am moving the data to requires the media's
   physical format to be ISO format.  My understanding is that with
   most drives, the default is to format to ISO format, and the optional
   formats can only be used after issuing a MODE SELECT command specifying the
   optional format, and then issuing a FORMAT UNIT command.  So it would
   appear that as long as the format program doesn't change the mode select
   parameters, it will get formatted to ISO format.  Does the formatting
   software that comes with these drives leave this alone and format the drive
   as ISO?


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

WARNING: Use of Waddell sails leads to increased windsurfing addiction.  Keep
	 out of reach during working hours.

Jonathan Hue	Island Graphics Corp.	uunet!island!hue   hue@island.uu.net