Iomega has released its Removable Rigid Disk (RRD) technology.
RRD is a proprietary Iomega development loosely based on current hard drive technology. Once completed, it is expected to have a native capacity of 35 GByte per cartridge.
Transfer speeds are up to seven times faster than digital tape methods, and with a maximum transfer rate of 22 MByte/s, the effective data throughput approaches 45 MByte/s with a 2:1 compression ratio.
Using an RRD backup architecture, and assuming normal data rates, backing up an average 20-GByte system takes approximately 10 minutes.
Internally the device creates a miniature “clean room” environment for the rotating disk, giving RRD systems the robustness of a sealed hard drive with the portability of a floppy disk or CD-ROM. Since data is accessed randomly via a disk arrangement—unlike tape drives where data access is sequential—information can be immediately written or retrieved from any location on the cartridge.
Users can store incremental changes, or copy and restore individual files just as simply.
RRD cartridges hold both a 2.5-inch (64-mm) rigid disk and an ultra-quiet fluid dynamic bearing motor. The motor is sealed inside the cartridge to eliminate the need for a spindle hole, a potential source of dust contamination. The drive itself, which fits a standard half height 3.5-inch (89-mm) drive slot, contains the read and write heads and associated drive electronics.
Iomega plans to position the removable drive to appeal to the server and desktop PC market, and development schedules suggest a product launch can be expected in early 2004.
The system is being designed to be compatible with popular backup and disaster recovery software and will appear to the host computer as a regular removable drive.
Home and business users will also be able to use an RRD cartridge as an emergency “boot and restore” disk, or store both operating system and data on the same disk to create an entire hard drive image.
Like many other removable drives, the relatively high capacity and inherent removable nature of a cartridge means the RRD drive offers potentially unlimited storage expandability.
Iomega claims the cartridges will be cheap and reliable enough to provide an alternative to filling the primary hard disk data.
Prototype cartridges are smaller than a deck of playing cards, have a rated life of over one million writes cycles and are capable of performing write verification at hard disk speeds.
Iomega is not the first to develop a disk-based removable drive, and the company may have a tough road remaining competitive with a proprietary device.
The iVDR (Information Versatile Disk for Removable usage) consortium, for example, which includes heavyweights Canon, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Phoenix Technologies, Pioneer, Sanyo, Sharp and JVC, are working to develop standards to ensure that removable hard drives can be swapped from one device to another.
A current iVDR disk can hold up to 80 GByte, but the consortium expects this to double by the first quarter of next year.