Guys, I finally have my new Olympus Sys.230 magneto-optical drive! It's awesome!
The speed on it is kind of odd, but I like it a lot. The write speed is kinda slow (~500kb/s - about 1/2 the speed of your average 300Mb HD), but the read speed is pretty speedy (1.2-1.8 Mb/s - about the speed of a 500Mb HD, not a newer one, though). While this is obviously not in the same category as a Jaz drive, it's still quite acceptable for both an archival storage medium and daily use as a secondary HD. Obviously you don't want to use it if you're trying to capture video direct to disk, but most programs use it just fine. It feels a lot faster than it sounds. Plus, it makes it possible to take some of the utilities off my main HD's to give me more space there.
The best part about it is that the cartridges are CHEAP....only $50 for 5 cartridges. The cart's are 230 Mb's each, and format to 217.5 Mb's. So that's OVER a gig for $50. The drive uses any ISO standard 3.5" MO medium (230Mb or 128Mb), so there's a ton of sources for these disks, but Olympus has the cheapest prices. They're nearly indestructable, and unlike Zips or Syquests, you can set them on your monitor, next to a phone, etc w/o worrying because the data is heavily protected. The disks are guaranteed for life.
