Storage media.

[p2@porter.asl.dialnet.symbolics.com (Peter Paine)]

These days I find that the amount of information floating about when
working with Genera is somewhat larger than it has been not so long ago.

eg. world sizes starting at 70,000 blocks and application sources often
measuring in the 1,000 to 5,000 record range. Then there is work with
images or color animation, or data logging task for examples.

Life seems to be an unending effort to shoe-horn overflowing data into
some persistant and suitable medium. However, for me, some systems just
do not shape up, such as MacIvory (or Mac) cart tape streamer. Indeed
the old 20 or 40 Mbyte cart tape streamer method seems to be somewhat
past it. 

There seem to be several obvious media available on which to (a)
transfer software to remote sites (b) do incremental and total backups
and (c) use as dynamic store during development work.

I am not well informed as to what is available, how it performs, what
the price breaks are, what the product or media life expectancies are,
the available s/w support facilities and their quality, ...

I had in mind a table such as:

Device			Read	Write	Random	Mbytes	Speed	Friendly  Cost	  Postable
					access	range		software  /Mbyte
Winchester disk		yes	yes	yes	~1000	fast	very	  high	  no
Standard Cart Tape	yes	yes	no	40	v.slow	low 	  low	  yes
Exabyte cart		yes	yes	no	2000	v.slow	low	  low	  yes
CD Rom			yes	no	yes	500	slow	?	  v.low	  yes
Worm			yes	once	yes	?	slow?	? 	  ?	  ?
Erasible optical	yes	yes	yes	300	?	?	  ?	  ?
Removable disc cart	yes	yes	yes	40	middle	as disc	  ?	  ?
3 1/2" floppy		yes	yes	yes	1	v.slow	OK	  high	  yes

But expanded to indicate:
	Costs: per drive unit, per cartridge, per megabyte, ...
	Shelf life for backups, ruggedness of drive and cartridge, ...
	Recyclability (carry from one brand computer (XL, 36xx, Sun, Mac, PC, to another etc)) ...
	The available software ..., to access, manage, configure, ...
	Compatibility of formats, standards, ...
	Being ready for opportunities opened by other folks such as those in multi-media ...
	Interfacing - s/w, hardware, ...
	The variety of ways in which such media can be used, ...
	Suitability for use on standalone machines, 36xx, MacIvory, large sites, ...
	And all those things that I have forgotten to ask about.

Any feedback (especially if based upon personal experience) that would
help me and others to plan, take opportunities and invest, would be most
appreciated.