High-Speed Optical Library System Using Digital Versatile Disk Random Access Memory

A high-data-transfer-rate optical storage system using a redundant array of inexpensive libraries (RAIL) has been developed and tested. It incorporates multiple libraries, where each library consists of dual digital versatile disk (DVD) random access memory (RAM) drives and a single robotic hand and holds 2.6 GB DVD disks. To increase the reliability of data storage and at the same time to eliminate the need for read-after-write verification, which doubles the recording time, a redundant array of inexpensive drives (RAID) 4 algorithm is implemented in the control unit of the storage system. Data sent by the host is transferred to a control unit, which stripes the data into five data groups plus one parity unit. The striped and parity data is sent to individual libraries and written to the DVD disks. This system writes and retrieves data with a transfer rate of approximately 6 MB/s, using write and read control methods that minimize the data striping overhead. This reliable library system can be used for networked multimedia applications.