Fujitsu begins sampling 2.3GB magneto-optical disk drive

July 5, 2001 (IDG News Service)

TOKYO -- Running toward a planned commercial launch in August, Fujitsu Ltd. began sample shipments Thursday of a new disk drive that will support the 2.3GB version of its rewritable magneto-optical disk format.

The current highest-capacity magneto-optical disks and drives support storage of up to 1.3GB of data per disk. The new 2.3GB format, nicknamed GigaMO, was jointly developed by Fujitsu and Sony Corp. to extend the life of the magneto-optical format, which has been coming under increasing pressure from newer rewritable optical disk formats such as DVD-R and DVD-RW, which have capacities of between 2.6GB and 9.6GB per disk.

The new GigaMO drive is backward-compatible with previous generations of magneto-optical disks from the 128MB version onward and has a maximum data transfer speed of 8.3MB/sec. The first version of the drive is equipped with an Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface, although Fujitsu said it's planning versions with other interfaces, such as SCSI, for the future.

Fujitsu and Sony first unveiled the 2.3GB format at the CeBit exhibition in Hanover, Germany, earlier this year.

The drive is available in sample quantities at $480. Mass production is scheduled for August, and Fujitsu expects to manufacture 2 million of the drives over the next three years.