MO-MIGA FAQ 1. What Version MO-MIGA does this FAQ refer? 2. Who distributes the MO-MIGA? 3 What Trademarks & Copyright restrictions apply? 4. What is a MO-MIGA? A. Introduction. (i) Where does this information come from? (ii) Who Can it be copied to? (iii) What are Magneto Optical Drives (MO's)? (iv) What are the advantages of Magneto Optical Drives? B. The MO_MIGA: (i) Can you give me an over-view? (ii) How much data can I store on the MO-MIGA system? (iii) How fast are MO-MIGA drives? (iv) Are there any test results available? C. What support software is available? (i) MO-MIGA Install- (ii) MO-MIGA Toolbox- (iii) MO-MIGA Exchange (iv) MO-MIGA Audit (v) MO-MIGA device (vi) MO-MIGA Auto-error correction (vii) MO-MIGA Tools (viii) MO-MIGA Blanker (ix) MO-MIGA start/stop/eject D. Is the MO-MIGA compatible with SCSI & SCSI2? E. Does the MO-MIGA permit multi-tasking? F. Who needs MO-MIGAs? G. Can I run my MO-MIGA under NetBSD? H. Can I use it on my PC compatible? I. Can I read files that have created under MSDOS on my Amiga? J. Can I read files from NetBSD under AmigaOS. K. Is an auto-change system available? L. What is the price of a MO-MIGA? M. Where can I get more information? 1. What Version MO-MIGA does this FAQ refer? version 2.41 2. Who distributes the MO-MIGA? All distribution is at the present time directly from the developers: Fourth Level Developments Ltd Email: david@flevel.demon.co.uk Fax: +44 (0) 204 844 867 Future Plans: Applications are invited for distributorships 3 What Trademarks & Copyright restrictions apply? MO-MIGA is a registered trade mark of Fourth Level Developments Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore- Amiga, AmigaDos,Autoconfig, A3000, A4000, CD32 and Workbench are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga. Fourth level developments are certified Amiga developers and are also Approved as Sony developers in The United Kingdom 4. What is a MO-MIGA? A. Introduction (i) Where does this information come from? The information in this section has been extracted from the manual so that it can be shown to people in your organisation who need an over-view of the MO-MIGA system. (ii) Who Can it be copied to? You are welcome to copy this section and distribute it freely to your colleagues and contacts. Your attention is however drawn to the fact that the copyright to contents of this manual are the property of Fourth Level Developments and any unauthorised distribution in whole or in part is an infringement of copyright. (iii) What are Magneto Optical Drives (MO's)? MO drives are like compact discs but re-writable. The discs come in a 5.25 in plastic cartidge but have the appearance of a large 3.5 in disk. The data is very secure and can be read 15 years after writing without any need for maintenance. Magneto Optical drives use a combinating of Magnetic and Optical effects. The disk is simular to other laser disks but the active area is made from a magnetic medium. In its raw state the medium is uniformly magnetised with the magnetic domain perpendicular to the plane of the disk. When you write to the disk its magnetisation can not be easily altered at room temperature, however when the temperature reaches a certain point the polarity can be flipped by an external magnetic field. So when a bit is to be recorded a high powered laser a beam is used to heat the material above the critical temperature there by allowing the reversal to take place. On reading the disk the drive has to decide which bits have been flipped and a low powered laser beam is used, the polarisation of the reflected beam is altered depending on the polarity of the bit. The polaristion is detected by the drive. This means that the drive can have a very high read speed because we are using light rather than magnetic interpretation of data. (iv) What are the advantages of Magneto Optical Drives? Magneto Optical Drives have the following major system advantages: (a) Portability Cartridges are compact, easily removable and transportable (b) Data Integrity Unlike conventional magnetic media they are not easily erasable by accident and they provide archive quality storage facilities. They are not easily damaged and the data can be made more secure than conventional hard drives because they can be securely locked away. (c) Speed. MO-MIGAs read much faster than standard IDE drives (see test results) and their write speeds are at least equal to if not faster) (d) Economy per MByte- The cost per Megabyte is much lower because you pay approx £100 per 1.2G cartridge(one off) and £85 per 1.2G cartridge in quantities of 5 or more. B. The MO_MIGA: (i) Can you give me an over-view? MO-MIGA 1.2GB Version 2.41 is the latest Magneto Optical Drive system for the Commodore Amiga from Fourth Level Developments. It is the ultimate drive for the professional user and comprises a specially adapted 5.25 inch rewriteable Magneto Optical drive built by Sony supplied with full Amiga support software and cabling for installation in all Commodore Amiga range of computers equipped with a SCSI interface. There are two drive types : (a) MO-MIGA 1.2 Internal (b) MO-MIGA 1.2 External The double sided cartridges, (double the capacity of release 2.1.), provide 616MBytes of user data storage per side and can be changed over or new disks inserted at will. (ii) How much data can I store on the MO-MIGA system? Because you can have a many cartridges as you wish the MO-MIGA provides virtually infinite data storage. (iii) How fast are MO-MIGA drives? The data transfer rates have now been dramatically increased to 2.0 MBytes per second sustained and up to 5.0 Mbytes per second sychronous burst. (That is provided your system and its applications are fast enough to keep up with it!). (iv) Are there any test results available? Yes see Appendix 1 Also see review in Amiga Computing of pre-production prototype which did not have the latest high speed buffered data transfer facility. (in June issue). C. What support software is available? MO-MIGA Software includes: (i) MO-MIGA Install- User friendly Commodore installer program which copies the software onto your hard drive and sets up your configuration. (ii) MO-MIGA Toolbox- Once the system is installed the user is provided with a tool box to format and partition cartridges Each cartridge, and cartridge side, can have different partitions which can be changed to suit the users' needs without resetting the Amiga or stopping other tasks from running. (iii) MO-MIGA Exchange provides new facilities for data exchange. Large scale automatic data exchanges by cartridge between sites and users have been catered for in this new release. MO-MIGA Exchange provides a common system which enables remote sites to automatically identify and implement the user setup requirements for each cartridge coupled with optional automatic dismounting upon cartridge ejection. MO-MIGA Exchange also provides a standard method for automatic identification of the cartridge originator by company name, site name, machine name and operator name. (iv)MO-MIGA Audit provides recording of audit events such as logons and cartridge changes. The system supervisor can set up different audit clasess and place certain users into these clasess, by doing this s/he can record the activities of users in a flexible manner. The MO-MIGA system enables users to increase the security of their data with the following options: (a) a movement audit trail, (b) a system of optional and multi level password controls to control access and writing of data. (c) a data access audit trail (d) An error audit trail which includes a record of attempts to make unauthorised reads or writes or to issue unauthorised commands. (e) A user transparent data encryption facility is available to registered users as an optional extra. Details of the security facilities and its management instructions and programmes are contained within a separate sealed package to be opened by the system administrator. (v)MO-MIGA device - Takes Amiga O/S- commands and manages the drive via SCSI direct commands to the MO-MIGA 1.2GB. Uses virtual data handling so all software can read/write any number of bytes from any bytewise disk offset. This means that the bytes per sector needs for multi operating system requirements can be met via the same device driver. Therefore partitions for the Amiga O/S operating at 512 Bytes per sector and (for example) a unix/xenix/BSD system partition at 1024 bytes per sector can access the same cartridge. Uses continuous sweep write cache and random access read cache of user requested size from 17k upwards. Supports all standard Amiga trackdisk.device commands. (vi) MO-MIGA Auto-error correction and defective block handling algorythms: For maximum compatibility with other systems data is written and error corrected by default in accordance with the lastest ISO ECMA standard defect management scheme for 130mm ReWriteable Optical Disks. The system is also compatible with the earlier ISO Standard and Sony's defect management system, or can operate in raw mode. (vii)MO-MIGA Tools Provides user controlled partitioning of the media and automatically creates and modifies mountlists and batch files. This feature overcomes the limitation for the Amiga to handle removable media that is differentially partitioned. MO-MIGA tools also supports Multi-file systems. Each individual media can carry its own set-up utility which includes assigns and all other standard user start-up sequences. (viii)MO-MIGA Blanker - Automatically stops the MO-MIGA's motor from spinning if the drive has not been used for a user-defined time period with auto restart when data transfer is requested. This prevents unnecessary wear on drive and disks. (ix) MO-MIGA start/stop/eject - These cli commands allow the user control over the drives motor and disk ejection. D. Is the MO-MIGA compatible with SCSI & SCSI2? Will operate under either SCSI or SCSI2. The system is backward compatible and will read and write current version lower capacity cartridges. E. Does the MO-MIGA permit multi-tasking? The MO-MIGA system multitasks and allows O/S-Legal programs to access the cartridges like a normal hard drive. MO-MIGA is compatible with WB2/3, this allows the user to pass cartridges to other Amiga computers without encountering compatibility problems. The MO-MIGA system is delivered complete with all system software, operating manuals, cables and straightforward installation guide. A voucher for 2 months immediate and free on-line support direct from Fourth Level Development's own system engineers and support team is included in the package. This includes access to new software releases and updates as they become available. Support can be extended by an annual subscription which includes access to new system software releases. As an optional extra a SCSI2 card is available. F. Who needs MO-MIGAs? MO-MIGA is an essential tool for any user needing mass data storage with fast convenient access. Graphics/video/film houses, bulletin board operators, company information providers www and ftp sites and CD ROM publishers are only a few examples of many ideal MO-MIGA environments. G. Can I run my MO-MIGA under NetBSD? Yes, provided your SCSI controller is supported you can use the MO-MIGA as either your root drive or as additional storage. If you need information on how to set it up under NetBSD then contact Fourth Level Developments who will even supply a cartridge to plug in and go. If you want to use the faster 1024 bytes per sector media with NetBSD then you will need kickstart and workbench V3.1. It is recommended that you stick to 1024 byte per sector media due to the significant increase in data storage capacity and speed. H. Can I use it on my PC compatible? Fourth Level can supply you with software to run your MO-MIGA drives on your PC compatible. Fairly shortly you will be able not only to read PC filing systems but also disks that have data stored on them in Amiga FFS and BFFS. The security features which are presenly available on the Amiga will also be available for the PC. I. Can I read files that have created under MSDOS on my Amiga? Yes you can. The ideal method is to establish the partitions which will be used as MSDOS partitions on the Amiga. Then mount the partitions on your PC and any data so stored will be readable under cross dos on the Amiga. J. Can I read files from NetBSD under AmigaOS. Yes, at the moment you will have to create your own mountlist from BFFS1.3, however a new release (V2.6) will cure this problem. K. Is an auto-change system available? Delivery of our auto-changer system will begin in September 1994. It holds 20 Cartridges and provides 24 GB on line? The price of the auto-changer will be announced during the week begining the 8th of August 1994. L. What is the price of a MO-MIGA End user prices are £1800 sterling + local VAT (if applicable) + carriage fully inclusive of all software. Up until now supplies of MO-MIGA's have been limited but full production has begun and ample supplies will be available to meet demand. Outstanding orders will be met in full by the end of August. End user support is via email and BBS direct from Fourth Level. Direct Ftp to Fourth Level is planned to be available from the middle of October 1994. M. Where can I get more information? Directly from Fourth Level Developments. email: sales@flevel.demon.co.uk (marketing) support@flevel.demon.co.uk (technical support) Fax +44 (0) 204 844 867 This number will change on 1st of September 1994 New number will be obtainable by email request. Snail mail: Before 1st of September 1994 : MO-MIGA Sales, Fourth Level Developments, 833,Chorley Old Rd, Doffcocker, Bolton, Greater Manchester, BL1 5SL, UK. After 1st of September 1994: MO-MIGA Sales, Fourth Level Developments, 31, Ashley Hill, Montpelier, Bristol, Avon, BS6 5JA, UK. End of MO-MIGA.2.41.FAQ APPENDIX: Disk speed results: These tests were done through the Amiga's FFS and so the data transfer rate is inclusive of SCSI,Device Software,File System and Operating System overheads. If speeds for specific applications are critical then we have available a number of special modes for fine tuning your application. One partitical example not mentioned below is pre-erased writing which increases the write speed by about 1/3 (Depending upon file size). This mode is particularly useful for batch digitising where using the MO-MIGA you should achieve significantly greater output than on IDE drives. These tests were done using 340K of software cache and 1MB of harware cache (Built into the MO-MIGA as standard). One word of caution, the way the test software package works has the effect of flattering the MO-MIGA seeks speeds. That is because some of the data being requested was already present in cache. In princial the seek time of MO drives is somewhat slower than hard drives because the MO has only one read/write head. However the MO makes up for this defiency by its much faster read time. The read speed on the first of the two tests is slighty faster because the write cache is enabled on the second test and it will finish emptying itself when the read starts thus reducing the figures slighly. MKSoft DiskSpeed 4.1 Copyright © 1989-91 MKSoft Development ------------------------------------------------------------ CPU: 68030 OS Version: 40.68 Normal Video DMA Device: SPEED: Buffers: 100 Comments: NoVerify,NoRHead,1024bps,NoWriteCache CPU Speed Rating: 1381 Testing directory manipulation speed. File Create: 51 files/sec | CPU Available: 59% File Open: 53 files/sec | CPU Available: 66% Directory Scan: 78 files/sec | CPU Available: 78% File Delete: 238 files/sec | CPU Available: 31% Seek/Read: 867 seeks/sec | CPU Available: 16% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 436906 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 79% Write to file: 543469 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 77% Read from file: 1578016 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 67% Testing with a 524288 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 572644 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 75% Write to file: 652099 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 73% Read from file: 1614187 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 67% Testing with a 1048576 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 667882 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 71% Write to file: 714938 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 70% Read from file: 1735232 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 65% Testing with a 1572864 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 694421 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 70% Write to file: 733269 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 69% Read from file: 1775241 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 64% Average CPU Available: 65% | CPU Availability index: 898 MKSoft DiskSpeed 4.1 Copyright © 1989-91 MKSoft Development ------------------------------------------------------------ CPU: 68030 OS Version: 40.68 Normal Video DMA Device: SPEED: Buffers: 100 Comments: Verify,RHead,1024bps,WriteCache CPU Speed Rating: 1376 Testing directory manipulation speed. File Create: 70 files/sec | CPU Available: 41% File Open: 118 files/sec | CPU Available: 32% Directory Scan: 171 files/sec | CPU Available: 50% File Delete: 212 files/sec | CPU Available: 28% Seek/Read: 837 seeks/sec | CPU Available: 18% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 355121 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 84% Write to file: 364088 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 85% Read from file: 1561155 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 67% Testing with a 524288 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 386453 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 83% Write to file: 386453 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 84% Read from file: 1538253 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 68% Testing with a 1048576 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 397941 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 83% Write to file: 399457 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 84% Read from file: 1682899 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 66% Testing with a 1572864 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 401924 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 83% Write to file: 403298 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 84% Read from file: 1722113 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 65% Average CPU Available: 65% | CPU Availability index: 894 MKSoft DiskSpeed 4.1 Copyright © 1989-91 MKSoft Development ------------------------------------------------------------ CPU: 68030 OS Version: 40.68 Normal Video DMA Device: other: Buffers: 30 Comments: Quantum 40MB,A3000 scsi,512bps This is a test done on the A3000s internal SCSI drive as a basis for comparison. CPU Speed Rating: 1376 Testing directory manipulation speed. File Create: 33 files/sec | CPU Available: 72% File Open: 72 files/sec | CPU Available: 54% Directory Scan: 175 files/sec | CPU Available: 45% File Delete: 123 files/sec | CPU Available: 48% Seek/Read: 53 seeks/sec | CPU Available: 82% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 339245 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 88% Write to file: 602994 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 91% Read from file: 614905 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 91% Testing with a 524288 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 435868 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 89% Write to file: 655360 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 91% Read from file: 667496 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 91% Testing with a 1048576 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 384798 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 88% Write to file: 683853 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 91% Read from file: 679422 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 91% Testing with a 1572864 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 431315 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 88% Write to file: 643298 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 88% Read from file: 658102 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 88% Average CPU Available: 81% | CPU Availability index: 1115