Conclusion

Fujitsu Magneto-optical (MO) drives seem to be an attractive proposal for the user who needs an alternative, to the plain old compact disk, removable storage medium format.

Serving multiple functionalities, the Fujitsu MO drives can be used as a secondary Hard Disk (1.3GB) of a lower however capacity, a descent backup solution for moderately sized user data, or a high capacity floppy disc for everyday office-to-home file transfers. With installation and usage simplicity, even novice users who are asking for an economical and reliable solution can easily adopt MO drives. Buffer underruns and drive-to-media incompatibilities from which frequently suffer other formats, such as the compact disks, are unknown to MO drives and media.

On the other hand, with cartridges that are impervious to dust, moisture, and shock, Fujitsu MO disks are extremely rugged and highly tolerant of the problems that plague regular magnetic media.

It is important to take into account when making your own assessment that each MO disk comes with a lifetime warranty.

The power point of Fujitsu MO drives is the low random access times. Officially Fujitsu claims that MO drives can randomly access a MO disk at an average of 23msec. Our tests showed a access times in the area of 35msec. As for the transfer rates achieved, they are lower than those an optical CD-R drive can give today.

However, the MO technology will not disappoint the candidate MC 3130AP or MC 3130SS buyer. Fujitsu is already developing the 2.3GB MO line of drives, while it has promised the even larger capacities of 5.2 and 9.1GB per disk.

The reader might also read the appendices to this review by clicking the relevant links below and to the right.