DEC yesterday announced its RV20 write-once optical drive, which can store up to 2Gb on a single 12 platter, and costs $30,000. The RV20 is compatible with the VAXBI Bus Interface and the Q bus, and DEC is guaranteeing a 30-year life for data and images stored on the disks, making them an attractive alternative to tape for archiving. The $30,000 price includes the drive, controller and bus adaptor and the system is compatible with the Digital Storage Architecture. No word on US availability, but in Europe, it is October 1988; slave drives are available at $21,500 or so. The firm also announced SLS, a secure archiving and retrieval package for rapid access of files stored on either disk or on tape. It is addressed either by menu or by the Digital Command Language, and is designed to ensure that files are not accidentally erased.
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