Optical Disk Technology for Large Scale Mass Storage.

Optical disk has been under intense investigation as a digital mass storage mechanism since the mid 1970's. Since that time, even before potential manufacturers had systems in hand, the technology has been touted as the panacea to cure all the supposed ills of magnetic based storage mechanisms. It is very important to gain an understanding of digital optical disk and what it can or cannot do in a particular application scenario before deciding if it is the answer to a storage problems. This report attempts to acquaint the potential techniques employed to overcome some of the perceived shortcomings. Keywords included: Optical disk; Digital optical disk; and Mass storage.