CD-ROM's,
DAT's,
Hard Disks,
Floppies/Flopticals,
Joysticks,
Memory,CDR's (Writeable CD-ROM's), DLT's (Digital Linear Tape), Mice
Here are the names of companies I know have MO drives and some I know have jukeboxes. In the past, I've heard something about high failure rates in MO drives in general, IF the cooling fans didn't have proper filtering. Dust particles would enter the drive and cause problems. (These last 2 sentences are VERY OLD information, I haven't hear anything new on this in a LONG time.) We purchased a Maxoptics Tahiti 4 drive and I think its great. The first enclosure we had didn't have nearly enough air movement and the MO drive and a DAT drive over heated. We replaced the enclosure with one with a lot of air flow and haven't had any problems with the drive since.
The Tahiti 3 drives used to be the best and under IRIX <=5.3, SGI already had some `unsupported' support for these drives. Get the one with the 4MB buffer NOT the 1MB. The Tahiti 4's have been out now for quite some time and get about 2.2GB/disc (~1.1GB/side). The Tahiti 6's (T6-5200) have also been out a long time and get about 4GB/disc (~2GB/side). SGI's need the 512 byte/sector media, ANY other byte/sector media will NOT work. IRIX 6.2 has some support for MO's. As long as one uses EFS file systems, IRIX will automatically mount MO media. HOWEVER, if one uses XFS, which is what we are all SUPPOSE to be changing to, mediad will not recognize the discs. Some companies will try to sell you software drivers for their drives, they should NOT be necessary. Make sure the company guarantees in writing that the drive will work with your machine. Also ask them for the name and number of some SGI customers. Good luck.
Under IRIX <= 5.3, cdromd (and mediad under IRIX 5.3) doesn't understand MO discs and under IRIX 6.2 mediad doesn't like XFS MO discs. In order to allow regular users to mount MO's with out root privilages, get the `mountmo' program to mount/unmount a MO disc from the command line or the `automopper' daemon to automount discs for you. The source code for both is in ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/hardware/mo/. We are using automopper and it works fine. I've made a few minor changes and created a makefile and system start up script for it. When I've got a chance, I'll try to get the changes back to author and also make it available here.
Under IRIX 6.5 mediad now supports XFS MO discs, so `mountmo' and `automopper' are no longer needed. `mediad' now automatically mounts XFS MO discs and `eject' will unmount and eject the media. We have had this working on an Indigo2 (with a T4) and an Octane (with a T6) for some time now.
If any one has any updated information, changes, or corrections, please let me know. I try to only keep a list of company names that end users have actually purchased equipment from and are satisfied with that company's products and service. If you have problems with a company, let me know and I'll see about dropping them from the list.
Warner Brothers Studios
Selling 193 brand new, never been used MAXOPTIX Max-GL Optical Glass media storage cartridges, Jukebox certified, Rewritable 1.3 GB 1024. Item # 2015384RW (???) Contact: Deborah Flugum, Deborah.Flugum@warnerbros.com WB Procurement Group Burbank, CA Phone: (818) 954-4301 Anacapa Phone: (800) 800-7056 Contact: Glen Anderson Educational Sales Rep: Webb Driver Alphatronix P.O. Box 13687 RTP, NC 27709-3687 Phone: (800) 849-2611 1.2GB Drive, 1MB Buffer $3195 (May '95) 1.2GB Drive, 4MB Buffer $3195 (May '95) 1.2GB 512 Bytes/sector Media $110 (May '95) I've talked to one of their SGI customers and their 1.2GB drives seems to work ok for them. They did purchase the drives with the smaller buffer size and they probably would have been happier with the 4MB buffer ones. The company has never `supported' SGI's and recent reports (May '96) say the newer IRIX OS releases are having problems working with the drives. The company also doesn't seem to care about supporting old customers. Contemporary Cybernetics Rock Landing Corp., Ctr. 11846 Rock Landing Newport News, VA 32606 Phone: (757) 873-9000, FAX: (757) 873-8836 Contact: Marty J. Campbell 1.2GB Drive, 4MB Buffer $3050 (May '95) 1.2GB 512 Bytes/sector Media $93 (May '95) Dirt Cheap Drives 3716 Timber Drive Dickinson, TX 77539 Phone: (800) 786-1160, (281) 534-4140; FAX: (281) 534-6452 http://www.hard-drive.com/ Tahiti 4 Multifunction MO/WORM: $1569 (May '97) ECS Technologies 1530 Caton Center Drive Baltimore, MD 21227 Tel: 410-242-2200 Technical support: 800-557-2414 Contact: Manager Ken Brown Artecon, Inc.(was Falcon Systems, Inc.) 6305 El Camino Real Carlsbad, CA 92009-1606 Phone: (800) 872-2783, (760) 931-5500, FAX: (760) 931-5527 http://www.artecon.com/ Tahiti 3 Multifunction MO/WORM with 4MB buffer: $2450 (May '95) SH-MD-512 1.2GB Media for above: $90 (May '95) Tahiti 4 Multifunction MO/WORM: $1981 (May '96) THT-MED-5 2.6GB Media for above: $111 (May '96) SH-004-E 4x5.25" HH Enclosure: $350 (May '96) Indigo2 Sled 5.25" $150 (May '95) Onyx Sled $298 (July '96) ~$80 less for 2 bay encloser. (May '95) Falcon's service became nonexistent. They didn't return calls and can't get quotes right. Others have noticed the same thing. Don't know if the new Artecon management has changed things any. INLINE CORPORATION 12110 Sunset Hills Road #450 Reston, Virginia 22090 USA Phone: (800) INLINE-7 (800-465-4637), 703-478-0800; FAX: (703) 478-0966 Email Contact: John Tibbitts: john@inlinecorp.com Email Contact: Jim Fernandez: jim@inlinecorp.com http://www.inlinecorp.com/ Tahiti 4 2.6GB Multifunction MO/WORM: $1800 (Aug. '96) Tahiti 5 2.6GB Multifunction MO/WORM: $? (Jan. '98) 1.2GB 512B/sector media: $79 (Aug. '95) 2.4GB 512B/sector media: $75 (Aug. '96) MO/WORM 512B/sector media: $75-120 (May '96) 4x5.25" HH Enclosure: $249 (Aug. '96) 18" SCSI-2 Cable $35 (Aug. '96) 18" SCSI-3 Cable (DC100-SCSI3-1.5) $30 (Feb. '99) AMPHENOL SCSI-2 ACTIVE TERM. $15 (Aug. '96) (GSA# is GS-35F-4143D) International Data Engineering 7727 Washington Avenue South Minneapolis, Minnesota 55439 Phone: (612) 946-4100, FAX: (612) 946-4141 Contact: Robyn R. Colvin? Juke Boxes ONLY Impediment, Inc. 541 Plain Street Marshfield, MA 02050 Phone: (781) 834-3800, Alex Sunguroff (car phone): (781) 694-4488 Fax: (781) 834-3666 Email Contact: Walter Seamon <walter@impediment.com> Email Contact: Alexander Sunguroff <alex@impediment.com> http://www.impediment.com/ 2.4GB 512B/sector media: $55 (April '99) Maxoptix 4GB 512B/sector media: $100 (Feb. '99) Tahiti 6-5200 5.2GB Multifunction MO/WORM: $1675 (Feb. '99) Legasys Systems International (was Legacy) 1006 Depot Hill Road, Suite 102 Broomfield, CO 80020 Phone: (800) 955-4229, (303) 469-6114, FAX: (303) 469-4699 California office: (714) 851-9984 Oregon Office: 800-327-8670 Contact: Lisa Millkan http://legasys.com/ Maxoptix Phone: (800) 848-3092, (510) 353-9700, (408) 954-9700 Option: 2 Product Info, 4 Technical, 5 Sales Tahiti 3 (1.2GB MO Drive) $1300 (Jan '96) Tahiti 4 (2.4GB MO Drive)(Internal) $2425 (Jan '96) Tahiti 4 (2.4GB MO Drive)(External) $2525 (Jan '96) Tahiti 4 Media (2.4GB MO) $89 (Jan '96) QStar Technologies, Inc. 600 East Jefferson Street Rockville, ME 20852 Phone: (800) 568-2578, FAX: (301) 762-9829 Software Only - Rorke Data supplies hardware RELAX TECHNOLOGIES Phone: (510) 471-6112 External Panasonic 128Mbyte MO drive $900 External Ricoh 128Mbyte MO drive $1000 (MAC market, :-( ) Rorke Data, Inc. (formerly Introl) 9700 West 78th St. Eden Prairie,, MN 55344 Phone: (800) 328-8147, (612) 943-7856, FAX: (612) 829-1925 VA Contact: Don Woods x121 Tahiti 3 Multifunction MO/WORM with 4MB buffer: $2495 (May '95) (Will try to sell you UNNECESSARY software drivers for drive) SH-MD-512 1.2GB Media for above: $90 (May '95) ~$200 more for 2 bay. ZZYZX Workstations & Peripherals 5893 Oberlin Dr., STE 104 San Diego, CA 92121 Phone:(800) 876-7818, (619) 558-7800, FAX: (619) 558-8283 North East territory: John Cusumano Email:will@zzyzx.com South East territory: Mark McKinzie North Central territory: Scott Hoyt South Central territory: Mike Abshire West Coast territory: Will J. Grupenhoff Email:will@zzyzx.com Government Contracts: Diane McDonnell http://www.zzyzx.com/ Tahiti 4 Multifunction MO/WORM $1799 (May '96) 2.3GB MO media $65 (April '97) Indigo2 5.25" Sled $295 (July '96) Onyx Sled $500 (July '96) Dual enclosure ~$50 (May '96) Quad 5.25" Half Height enclosure $235 (May '96) Quad 5.25" Full Height enclosure (4*65W supply) $475 (April '97)
My other SGI 3rd party hardware lists:
CD-ROM's,
DAT's,
Hard Disks,
Floppies/Flopticals,
Joysticks,
Memory,
CDR's (Writeable CD-ROM's),
DLT's (Digital Linear Tape),
Mice
If you have any additions, corrects, or updates to the above information, please email me at: blbates@vigyan.com, thanks.
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Last update: December 16, 2003