The Robotic CD/DVD Libraries of the MC-8000 series of the JVC Company
By Valerie Panzhenskiy

In the field of the video production the facing of the problem of temporary and long-term storage of big volumes of the information occurs constantly. This problem is also well known to the large number of other organizations (museums, libraries, project and scientific and research centers, municipal enterprises, etc) which deal with the huge volumes of information which is often of different character from the text to the multimedia.

Till recently time the solvation of the problem of storage and archiving of the information on practice could be realized with the use of the disc stackers of libraries based on the tape steamer facilities using the DTL technologies. But none of these two methods can fully satisfy all the requirements of the archiving of big volumes of information. The disc stackers provide the highest speed of the access to the information but the reliability of these facilities is low. The increase of the reliability of the stackers themselves and the guarantee of the safety of information might be achieved by the integration of the disc stackers into the RAID arrays levels 3 and 5. In that case if one the stackers that is included into the RAID array falls out the opportunity of restoration of the information is provided. In spite of that such a methodic provides the reliability of the storage of information it leads to the decrease of the efficiency of the use of the disc space (about 30% of volume of the disc space is used under the reserve copying). At the end with the rise of the information volumes it leads to the sufficient increase of a price of the systems of storage and archiving.

DVD libraries of MC-8000 series

The specialties of the robotic CD/DVD libraries of the MC-8000U series:

• an opportunity of concurrent work with the different types of the mirror mediums (CD-ROM/R/RW, DVD-ROM/R/RAM);
• the support of the big volumes of the information (up to 5.4 TB) and an opportunity of the effective access to it;
• an opportunity to work in the local networks and the maintainece of the network technologies NAS and SAN;
• the presence of the turn-over and roll-separating mechanism of the mediums that provide an opportunity to use the double-sided DVD mediums and by that allow doubling the volume of the stored information. The original construction of that mechanism allows decreasing the time of the change of the medium in the reading-out/recording facility and giving up the additional space for the operations of the disc turn-over;
• the presence internal colorful printer for the assignment of the discs;
• the substantial ventilation of the internal volume of the body that provides the optimal routine of operation;
• the mean-time-between-failures - 25 mln. of cycles;
• the simplicity of the connecting and tuning of the system;
• the support of the wide range of the software for the CD/DVD libraries;
• an opportunity of the local and distance diagnosis of the system's status (at RS-232).

The fields of use:

• The video archiving. The provided large volumes of the disc space allow storing the archived video materials (films, the content of the magnetic videotapes in the digital (MPEG format)). Besides the longer period of the storage in relation to the traditional magnetic tapes is provided. At the jointing use of the CD/DVD library and the disc arrays there is provided an opportunities of operating with the video archives at the routine close to the real time and to provide the movie show by request for the spread on the local network and the cable television.
• Reserve copying. The presence in the libraries of the rewritable mediums of big volumes (DVD-RAM) provides the high efficiency of the storage, control of data and their reserve copying in the large corporative networks (financial organizations, large-scale industrial and commercial enterprise, libraries, etc).
• The archiving of the images of high resolution. The CD/DVD libraries provide an opportunity to store of the images of high resolution and operative access to them. The digital copies of the fine arts objects, X-ray photographs and the other materials of the medical field, scientific documentation, etc. is the far not completed list of the use of such libraries.
• The security and tracking loops. The large volumes of DVD discs allow storing the many-particle information incoming from the big amount of the tracking cameras. An opportunity of the direct access provides the fast search of the needed information among the huge volumes of the generated information.

Provided by the "Era" firm.

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