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By Art Brieva
Magneto-optical drives have proved to be a safe, durable medium for backups. The trouble was, they've been slow and expensive. That's starting to change. Though a little pricey, Olympus Image Systems' PowerMO 230 is one external magneto-optical drive that is nearly as fast as a slow hard disk. Users can expect low media cost and great drive performance.
The PowerMO cartridge looks like-and has the convenience of-your 3.5-inch floppy disks. The cartridge, however, stores up to 230MB of data and is slightly thicker than a floppy disk.
This magneto-optical drive's performance is comparable to that of a slow hard disk drive. According to our tests, the drive has an average access time of 26 milliseconds and a sustained data-transfer rate of 1.84MB per second. The PowerMO spins at 4500rpm and has a 1MB on-board cache.
Don't be fooled by the PowerMO's SCSI Centronics interface. The PowerMO includes an Adaptec 1505 16-bit SCSI controller and software for simple installation.
If you run Windows 3.0 or 3.1x, you'll need to load the provided ASPI SCSI drivers or use an ASPI-compatible driver for your controller. If you're a Windows 95 user, you can simply Plug and Play. This is how Windows 95 is supposed to work. You can format the MO cartridges using File Manager, Win95 Explorer or the provided SCSI software, or with the DOS format utility.
If you're looking for an impressive and reliable medium for storing large data files, applications or any other data type, the Olympus PowerMO 230 makes a powerful case.
--Info File--
Olympus PowerMO 230
Price: $589 (street)
Pros: Performance
Cons: Price
Platforms: Win 95, 3.0, 3.1x, NT
Olympus Image Systems
800-347-4027, 516-844-5000
WinMag Box Score: 3.5
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