SuperMac Technology has launched a 650Mb optical storage system for Apple Computer Inc Macintosh computers in the UK. Optical disk drives are more expensive than magnetic drives, but SuperMac reckons that with its interchangeable cartridges, which can be added to provide extra storage, the overall cost-per-megabyte drops. The initial cost is UKP5,500 for the drive, additional storage cartridges cost UKP250. This compares with UKP5,000 for a hard disk drive from SuperMac, but adding more storage means another UKP5,000 for another drive, as there are no interchangeable cartridges. The optical system, called LaserFrame, is aimed at graphics users that need lots of storage. According to SuperMac, an 8.5 by 11 inch photo occupies 24Mb of storage space. LaserFrame uses blind rather than polled read and writes, which it claims leads to 50% faster reads than competing optical drives, although this is still slower than on hard disks. However, SuperMac reckons that a 50mS difference in data transfer is trivial, as both systems take several minutes to load graphics files from a storage system. LaserFrame will be available in August. The UK distributor is London-based Principal Ltd.
