Fujitsu, Sony show removable 2.3G MO drives

From...

By Martyn Williams

(IDG) -- Fujitsu Ltd. and Sony Corp. unveiled the latest upgrade to the Magneto Optical (MO) rewritable optical disc here at the CeBIT trade show Wednesday. The two companies are showing prototypes of new drives and discs that can hold up to 2.3G bytes of data -- almost double the current highest capacity disk.

The new 2.3G format is expected to go on sale by the fourth quarter of this year and is targeted for use as a backup for commercial systems, such as telephone switches and automated teller machines (ATMs), and for backup video and other applications that use large volumes of data, the companies said in a statement. Drives for the new format include support for the Media ID copy protection system and are compatible with the previous 3.5 inch MO formats from 1.3G down to the original 128M-byte discs.

IDG.net INFOCENTER ITWorld.com home ITWorld.com Webcasts ITWorld.com forums Free e-mail newsletters Features Sweeten your stock-option package All about Microsoft .Net Top 10 rules for e-business success Visit an IDG site Choose a site: IDG.net CIO Computerworld Darwin Dummies.com GamePro.com The Industry Standard ITWorld.com InfoWorld.com JavaWorld LinuxWorld Macworld Online Network World Fusion PC World Publish.com SunWorld IDG.net search

Introduction of the format means increased competition in the high-capacity removable media market, especially for DVD (digital versatile disc)-based formats and Iomega Corp.'s Jaz, which currently dominate the market over 2G bytes. First generation DVD-R and DVD-RAM discs will hold 2.6G bytes of data per side with second-generation versions of the same format storing up to 4.7G bytes. Jaz cartridges hold 2G bytes of data.

Below 2G bytes, competition will come from existing 1.3G byte MO discs and other formats including the immensely popular write-once and rewritable CD-R and CD-RW formats, and the recently-announced Double Density CD. Expected on the market from April, the Sony-developed DD-CD can store up to 1.3G bytes of data.

The two companies said they have already received support for the 2.3G MO standard from Olympus Optical Co. Ltd. and Konica Corp. for the drives and Teijin Ltd., Hitachi Maxell Ltd., Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. and Ritek Corp. for the media.

Sony set to launch double density CD
March 15, 2001
Aiming at the superparamagnetic limit
March 14, 2001
Review: Best CD-RW drives on the market
March 7, 2001
Will the floppy disk find new life?
February 7, 2001
Researchers test adhesive tape as storage medium
January 24, 2001
Online storage: Free file sharing for all
January 18, 2001
Dell: PCs, servers, storage to remain growth areas
November 13, 2000

Sanyo launches iD photo optical disc format
(IDG.net)
Philips targets the enterprise with DVD+RW
(IDG.net)
Homemade CDs out perform factory-made discs
(IDG.net)
iDVD diary, day 1: First appearances
(Macworld)
Top 10 CD-RW drives
(PCWorld.com)
Pioneer puts home movies on DVDs affordably
(PCWorld.com)
Recordable DVD: Great idea, but which format?
(PCWorld.com)
A CD burner for music lovers
(PCWorld.com)

Sony
Fujitsu

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.