[2:00 PM] LaCie Gives A Hint Of The Future, Demos FireWire DVD-RAM
by Staff
At Apple Computer's World Wide Developers Conference, LaCie is demonstrating a new FireWire based, DVD-RAM technology, allowing users to store nearly 10GB worth of data on one, rewriteable, DVD. According to LaCie:
LaCie is giving the more than 4,000 attendees to the Apple World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) an advanced look at the next generation of high-capacity, high-performance rewriteable DVD drives this week. Scheduled for delivery this summer, the new high-speed DVD-RAM drives will provide users with the hot-swappable performance of FireWire connectivity as well as single-sided 4.7GB and double-sided 9.4GB removable, rewriteable storage capacity.
Equipped with a 400 Mbps FireWire interface, LaCie's FireWire DVD-RAM drives can be quickly connected to the native FireWire ports that are standard with Macintosh G3, G4 and iMac DV systems and PCs incorporating Windows 98 Second Edition or Windows 2000. Once connected, the drive mounts automatically without requiring terminators, device IDs or elaborate setup.
The convenience of being able to easily transfer the drives between FireWire-equipped systems plus the high capacity that these drives provide makes them especially popular with software, content and creative developers. A single double-sided disc provides 9.4GB of storage and more than 100,000 write/rewrite cycles for less than a penny per Megabyte. When plugged in to a FireWire-equipped computer, the LaCie drive behaves just like any other drive on the system, delivering exceptional reliability. Since there is no physical contact between the laser head and the media, no media damage can occur.
The LaCie DVD-RAM drive will read from discs currently accepted by CD-ROM, CD Audio, CDR, CD-RW and video CD drives, as well as DVD-R, DVD-ROM, and DVD video drives. In addition to reading and writing bare 4.7GB discs, the drives will also read and write earlier 2.6GB and 5.2GB DVD-RAM media. With data transfer rates of up to 22Mbps, users will have a single, low-cost storage solution for digital content creation and playback, performing system backups and downloading large files to removable media. Information recorded on DVD-RAM media can also be read by the latest DVD-ROM drives.
LaCie anticipates their FireWire DVD-RAM drives will be available this summer. Pricing has not yet been set. You can find more information at the LaCie web site.
The Mac Observer Spin: This is significant for the FireWire market. This is a dynamite product that many users will find they need. LaCie is the first to demonstrate a drive of this nature, though we expect others to follow in their footsteps during the next few months.
