sed up to 1000 times and has a 30-year lifetime, making it an excellent choice for applications such as backup. It's also a great choice for CD mastering because, unlike CD-R, a mistake or buffer underrun won't ruin the disc. But at $25 per disc, CD-RW media is five times more expensive than CD-R.
You can use CD-RW two ways. For mastering or multiwrite sessions (adding data to the media sequentially, by tracks), CD-RW discs are completely backward- and forward-compatible with standard CDs; they can be read by any CD drive, including DVD. Testing the MP6
200S with a prerelease version of Adaptec's Easy-CD Pro 2.1, I created both standard data (ISO 9660) and audio (Red Book) CDs. The only difference is an icon in Easy-CD Pro that erases CD-RW media.
The MP6200S can also do packet writing using the new standard Universal Data Format (UDF) that makes the CD-RW appear as just another drive letter. I used an early beta version of Adaptec DirectCD, which will be shipped with the drive. It formats CD-RW media into sectors and uses a Windows 95 virtual device driver (VxD) for accessing the files. A CD created with UDF needs a device driver to be recognized by a PC. There have been rumblings about UDF drivers being included in future operating systems. In the meantime, DirectCD makes UDF CD-RW media compatible with all PCs.
Unfortunately, the VxD didn't yet have full UDF capabilities. While I could drag and drop files onto the CD-RW, I could only erase the entire disc instead of deleting individual files. The shipping version of the drive will include full
UDF capabilities, a Ricoh spokesperson said, so CD-RW discs can be used just like 650-MB removable media.
Although several manufacturers will ship CD-RW drives, it remains to be seen how successful the technology will be. CD-RW is definitely a transitional technology on the way toward a DVD future, but it offers distinct advantages now. Although the initial drive investment of $599 isn't inexpensive, the CD-RW media cost of 3 cents per MB is considerably below the 10 to 15 cents per meg of competing rewritable technologies such as magneto-optical and phase-change dual or removable-media drives such as the Iomega Jaz or SyQuest SyJet. And the MP6200S's ability to act as both a CD reader and a CD-R recorder makes it a true multifunction peripheral.
Product Information
MP6200S.............................................$599
Read/Write Media....................................$ 25
Ricoh Corp.
Sa
n Jose, CA
Phone: 800-955-3453
Phone: 408-432-8800
Fax: 408-432-8372
Internet:
http://www.ricoh.com
Circle 1033 on Inquiry Card.
A Readin', Rewritin' CD Drive
