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Should I Worry About Mt. Rainier Support?
"Now if you're not familiar with it the idea is to make it so you can use CD-RWs as floppies (same as DirectCD) only it's supports things like defect correction (instead of making the OS do that work) and eliminate formatting times. But the drive doesn't support writing to the format. Is this something that could be added in a firmware upgrade? Also, it looks like Mt. Rainier is also supposed to be for DVD+RW discs. Is this true?
Mt. Rainier drives have been on the market for a while now. It's not too common because it requires 3rd party software if the OS doesn't support it natively (I don't think it will be in Windows until Longhorn, and it looks like there are patches for the Linux kernel).
Can it be added with a firmware upgrade? Have a better drive suggestion? Can it be added with just software? Will it be a moot issue because of recordable DVD drives?"
I didnt think this was going to be a very big thing??
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
Do you want to be able to use CD/DVDs as floppies? if the answer is yes, keep looking. Otherwise, pickup the drive.
Why not fork?
Looks pretty big from Seattle. ;-)
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-Balam
UDF could be used as an alternative for drag and drop packet writing. I don't see a reason not to get a non-Mt. Rainier drive, it won't be too much trouble to put your '3rd party software' on both computers. If you're not in a hurry then wait, but it could be a few years. As for data integrity, the backup nuts will tell you that you should be storing your data in three different places anyways... there's no compelling reason not to go ahead with the Sony.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Mt. Rainier still doesn't have a lot of support, so you're not going to miss out on much. Firmware upgrades can add support for it in the future. For example, the Plextor 40/12/40A I bought last year has a firmware update which adds Mt. Rainier support.
If there's demand, Sony will probably do something similar for their drive in the future.
Bottom line: If you don't plan to use Mt. Rainier yourself, then you probably don't have to worry about reading other people's CD-MRW discs until you're in the market for new burner anyway. Mt. Rainier IS a very usefull and time-saving tech, but only you can decide if you think its worth paying for now.
I used to work for sony, and while pretty much anything with a laser in it made by sony is reasonable quality, the price is almost always too high and the support is god aweful. Do not count on Sony adding too much in terms of functionality via firmware upgrades. Generally sony releases a newer drive with the feature or doesn't release it instead. Remember when they released the new set of clie handhelds with the improved display... well the actual hardware in the display was identical to the previous model, the only difference was a firmware upgrade.... they based the entire new model on a firmware upgrade.
Only on the 3 days of the year it's actually visible.
To answer some of your questions, yes Mount Rainier can be implemented in the firmware of many drives that dont natively support Mt Rainier. There are some prerequisites, but almost any modern drive that supports packet writing and buffer undderrun protection (ie the ability to accurately store and return to media locations) meets them. Of course it needs to write to a media whose format supports Mt Rainier. In theory any modern CDRW drive (with decent short-gap "buffer undderrun protection") could be upgraded to Mt Rainier, provided it had enough capacity in its F/W chip to store the code (most are only 1-2Mb). I'd be suprise if it were any different for DVD+. The DVD- format, for a number of reasons, is exclusive with Mt Rainier provisions for random access, defect management and background formatting - there will never be a Mt Rainier DVD-RW drive, its impossible! Mt Rainier was designed from the outstart primarily for CDRW (along with some more obscure optomag formats) and +RW was designed from the start to be compatible with Mt Rainier. Of course having said all that I'm dubious Sony will put in the effort to produce Mt Rainier firmware for an already released product, in fact I've never seen a manufacturer do that. It's correct that Longhorn has been slated by M$ to $upport Mt Rainier natively.
Nobody has mention DVD-RAM so far... RAM discs have a 100,000 read/write life compared to 1,000 for +/-RW's. The cartrige (which you don't have to use) makes for a somewhat more robust disc, especially since you plan to take the drive back and forth. -R/RAM is another avenue you can take and RAM discs are better suited for use as a floppy disc than any of the others.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I dont know if RedHat Linux supports Mt Rainier, but here you will find Mount Rainier supporting (some of) RedHat!
Do you need Mt. Ranier (or packet writing in general?)
Keep in mind that in some circles, packet writing of CDs is considered an excellent way to lose your data, and nothing more.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I agreed with all the previous posters that if a drive doesn't support Mount Rainier already, don't count on a firmware upgrade being available in the future.
Philips latest 4x DVD+RW drive DVDRW416K is the first DVD+RW drive supports Mount Rainier. Note that it was just announced at CeBit last month and it's not shipping yet.
Do consider that if Mount Rainier is important to you, alternatively you might want to consider DVD-RAM. The new Panasonic LF-D521 can read and write DVD-RAM, DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW, and the drive can be had for $160-$199. DVD-RAM media is quite a bit more expensive than DVD-RW/+RW, and incomaptible with existing players, but for random access data storage it's far more reliable and simple. DVD-RAM has the same defect management and drag-and-drop rewriting that DVD+MRW promised, but it's here now (actually it's been around almost as long as DVD-ROM has). It's a good choice for random access data storage if it fits your need.
What I wonder is how reliable traditional (non-Mount Rainier) packet writing on DVD+RW is. Minor defects on a traditional packet-writing CD-RW can render the whole disc unreadable. I wonder if the same is true for traditional packet writing DVD+RW. Does anyone here has a solid answer to that?