A new write-once optical disk drive storing up to 940Mb on a 5.25 disk, is now available from Aldershot, Hampshire-based Magstore Ltd. The disks are manufactured by Plasmon Data Systems, headquartered in Melbourn, Hertfordshire and the disk drive comes from Panasonic UK, which is owned by the Japanese company, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. The LF5010 allows users to read-write to 200Mb, 400Mb, and 940Mb disks from IBM and Panasonic drives, and has a 90mS seek time and transfers data at 655Kbytes-per-second. The system is supported by Apple Macintosh machines, and by machines running Novell Netware and Unix, and it can be integrated into custom systems with an SCSI interface. The platinum based disk is claimed to have a 30-year data life but that must be taken on trust since none of the things have been around for 30 years to prove the point. Magstore’s managing director, Stuart Vane-Tempest, believes that write-once-read-many optical drives are highly appropriate for storing stable data, which may need to be added to but not changed, such as medical records or archives. The 940Mb drive with software and host adaptor costs UKP2,750. The 200Mb, 400Mb and 940Mb platters cost UKP45, UKP85, and UKP135 respectively. Plasmon Data Systems and Magstore are also joint partners in a new company, Reflection Systems Ltd. The Erith, Kent-based company has an OEM agreement with Matsushita to sell disk drives in continental Europe, under the Reflection brand name. However, it is precluded from selling in the UK as it would be in direct competition with Matsushita’s UK distributors. Plasmon Data Systems, the majority shareholder in Reflection Systems, was subject to an institutional buy-out in 1987. The company is now partially owned by Belgian Agfa Gevaert, Koreri, the large Japanese petro-chemical firm, and a number of venture capital companies. Plasmon Data Systems Inc was originally located in San Jose, California, and recently opened a second office in Washington DC. However, the company wishes to expand into the European market, and it regards Reflection Systems Ltd as a springboard for entry.
