magnetic optical drive

Magneto-optical drives are a combination of hard disk and compact disc. They are rewritable with the data carrier applied to both sides. The MO disc cannot be magnetized directly; the data carrier is first heated by a laser before the working area can be written to by a magnetic field. Double-sided data carriers are read purely optically with a laser beam that is reflected differently by the magnetized and non-magnetized material.

The design of MO drives is similar to that of CD drives. MO drives have a laser to heat the MO storage layer and read the stored information. A magnetic head is used to write the data, which electromagnetically affects the storage layer.

Erasing and storing information is done in two passes: In the first pass, the information is erased; in a second, it is re-stored. Thanks to a new standard called Limdow, only one pass is needed for the write, verify and read operations.

MO drives' write speeds range from 1.5 MB/s to 3.5 MB/s, read speeds from 3.5 MB/s to 6 MB/s, and average positioning times from 20 ms to 30 ms. MO drives are equipped with the standard interfaces for personal computers( PC).