How It Works, Magneto-Optical Unit.

How It Works, Magneto-Optical Unit.

Magnetic signals used by floppy disk drives and conventional hard disk recording data on tracks
microscopic. And even if used on a universal scale, are rudimentary. In contrast, a light beam produced by
laser can be reduced to a much smaller area than that achieved by the head read / write magnetic most sensitive.
Logically, if a laser beam can be used to read and write to disk, this means that more data can be
stored in the same space.

The first experiments to direct the laser beam as a device read / write resulted in products
WORM, acronym for Write Once, Read Many (write once, read many times). A WORM can actually store hundreds
megabytes of data on a single removable disk. The problem about him is that, after the data is written to
disk is no longer able to change them or delete them. An elaborate scheme to search for a new track enabled version
file that can be burned to disk escobrindo its original version. The scheme worked well, but was not the solution
ideal. Theoretically, it is possible to fill in a WORM disk with a 500MB file only 1KB. Currently, the units
WORM are useful only to keep track of transactions for audit unchanged.

A solution to the removable memory storage that allows data to be erased and altered emerged with
units magneto-optical (MO), which combines technology and the advantages of conventional magnetic units with the
CD-ROMs and WORM drives based on beams of light. The laser used in the MO drives allows data to be
compressed so that hundreds of megabytes of information are stored in a single disc that can be
transported - as a CD - from one machine to another. Just as in the magnetic units, it is possible
record, edit and delete data without the limitation of reading the CD-ROM and limitations of recording units
WORM. In addition, the disks do not have magnetic fields that may be affected by temperature. As the head
read / write unit MO far from the disc surface, there is less risk of damage. These two technologies
cause the magneto-optical disks are the ideal way to backup and transport of bulk data.

Source: Evolution of Computers