DISC
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Company Information
DISC, Incorporated's mission is "To supply a broad range of highly reliable automated storage solutions for multiple segments of the mass storage market."
The DISC product line includes an extensive family of high performance libraries for 5.25-inch optical disk storage. In addition, the CD library family consists of automated libraries for CD-ROM, CD-Recordable, or a combination of the two. Finally the Hybrid family is a combination of all three technologies. These product lines allow DISC to offer the broadest range of products to our customers. Incorporating a modular concept, many of the libraries are upgradable to higher capacities and span a wide range of market needs from small entry level systems to large scale storage systems for high-performance transaction-oriented applications. All models share a common architecture aimed at high-reliability, high-performance, configuration flexibility and field upgradability. DISC library platforms feature an "open architecture" capable of integrating a variety of 5.25" MO, CCW, and CD-ROM/Recordable drives.
High duty cycle and high accessibility CD-ROM and CD-R applications are driving the demand for DISC CD systems, as healthcare, banking and government users migrate their archival storage applications to CD Recordable media. Library capacities for 5.25" optical range from 50 to 1054 cartridges with up to 16 drives resulting in a storage capacity up to 2.7 Terabytes using 2.6 GB media. CD Library Capacities range from 125 to 1478 CDs with up to 32 readers or recorders.
Cartridges and drives are configured in a flexible matrix for high performance and compact storage. Two matrix arrays can be mounted back-to-back in dual library units to double the system performance. A 1280 cartridge system with 32 CD-ROM drives can service over 800 user requests per hour within a footprint of only 36" by 55"
High availability for mission critical applications is achieved by mounting drives and media within a ruggedized steel frame. Alignment is continuously maintained by electronically sensing the positions of special alignment modules located in slots within the array. The simple, elegant design of DISC libraries minimizes the number of moving parts. Error recovery, diagnostic software, and maintenance features assure high availability with field demonstrated 2,000,000 MEBF (Mean Exchanges Between Failures) and an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) of over 40,000 hours.
High-performance is also inherent in the design, maximizing information access speeds. Fast robotics, dual changers, and dual pickers combined with the ability to install far more drives than any competitive product combine to produce industry-leading data availability. Drive arrays are interspersed within the compact media matrix to minimize the media picker movement. Changers carry two media cartridges enabling drive and changer operations to overlap.
Scaleable architecture enables DISC libraries to be configured and field re-configured to meet the specific needs of high growth storage applications with virtually any mix of drives, changers and media. This configuration flexibility and field upgradability derive from a common design oriented toward high reliability and performance.