Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!tjhorton
From: tjhorton@csri.toronto.edu (Tim Horton)
Subject: Re: Disk transfer speed (was Re: Some Answers, straight from NeXT)
Message-ID: <8810302354.AA27091@dixon.csri.toronto.edu>
Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI
References: <IXNVL2y00UgX04HXdx@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 88 18:54:46 EST

wb1j+@andrew.cmu.edu (William M. Bumgarner) writes:
>>> Are you sure that's not 4.8M-BITS/second?   From what I understand of the
>>> technology, if they are using a single laser the upper limit on reliable
>>> data transfer is 5Mbits a second, or was so just a few months ago (ref:

>The Floptical Drive is not on the SCSI port.  It goes through its own
>controller.  SCSI speed is independent of the Floptical port speed.

My comments refer to limits on the speed of the data transfer due to the medium
itself, not ports or anything up or down stream.  I think the upper limit on
writing speed is 5 MBits/second/laser.  The recording media must be heated to
about 150 degrees Celsius using the right wavelengths, and that takes time.
