Cygnet's Infinidisc CD jukebox

Emedia Professional, Jan, 1998 by David Doering

Until recently, CD-ROM jukeboxes have seemed as uncommon a commodity as the all-but-extinct all-vinyl music jukeboxes of days and diners past. Annual jukebox sales of less than 10,000 units a year appear minuscule along-side the hundreds of thousands of CD-ROM towers or millions of CD-ROM drives sold over comparable periods. Today, however, CD jukeboxes are staking a sizable claim to the vast small business storage market, thanks to the emergence of sub-$5,000 and $10,000 entries and a dramatically increased need for multiple-title network CD access at a level that only jukebox systems are equipped to provide. As new low-cost recorders have made CD creation cheap, and variable-length packet writing has made the process easier than ever, corporations whose information-intensive work means creating, storing, and frequently accessing vast quantities of content find themselves amassing CD collections so big that only jukeboxes can keep them online and available to networked users.

Cygnet Storage Solutions' new Infinidisc jukebox serves those needs effectively, and aims to meet data warehousing growth with a modular approach that is rare among existing jukebox models. Up until now, CD-ROM jukeboxes were self-contained devices with fixed capacities. You purchased a system that stored 100, 250, or 500 discs. If you needed more discs online, you added another jukebox. The Infinidisc is one of a handful of new jukeboxes that break that capacity-confining mold by allowing users to expand their jukeboxes using their jukebox's existing robotics. This modular approach allows users to tailor their purchase to their current needs, knowing that in the future their initial investment will continue to pay dividends as they add further capacity or drives to the jukebox.

Run through its throughput, swap time, and other performance paces, the Infinidisc performed to spec on all tests, both reading and writing across the network. Testing was performed on a network testbed that included a Windows NT 4.0 server and Smart Storage SmartCD networking software--a typical configuration for jukebox users, according to Cygnet. Given the ease and convenience of its expansion path and its $9,995 base price, the Cygnet Infinidisc is well-equipped to meet the existing and growing accessible storage needs of information-intensive corporate and institutional computing environments.

CONSTRUCTION AND IMPLEMENTATION: EXPANSION EXPONENTIAL

The Infinidisc cabinet is designed around the rackmount format. In order to take full advantage of the available space in this format, the Infinidisc uses a carousel approach. 250 CD-ROMs are placed in a revolving tray, loaded via a front door or on a one-by-one basis via a mail slot. The tray is bi-directional, so access is as rapid as possible.

Cygnet also sells a 500 CD-ROM unit that consists of two carousels in the same cabinet. This is the practical limit inside the one cabinet, but expansion is possible beyond two carousels. The firmware itself will support up to ten carousels for a total of 2,500 discs, which adds up to 1.625 terabytes (TB) using CD-ROM, or 35TB with DVD discs.

Although 500 discs may seem plenty for most sites, Cygnet already has found a common request for 750 discs for use with litigation support in the legal arena. Data warehousing specialists already talk in many terabytes of storage, so this capacity seems a good precaution for such sites.

While carousels effectively suit the static data-and text-oriented storage and access needs of large libraries, such configurations adapt less comfortably to more project-oriented storage. For example, archiving graphics or multimedia presentations may work better in the 20-disc cartridge format offered in the NSM Satellite or the Elms CD-Library system. The choice depends on the user's storage and access requirements.

Solid metal components buttress the Infinidisc's efficient construction. Doors on each side allow interior access, a major convenience for relatively large units like the Infinidisc, with its 43-inch height and 32-inch width. The side doors would benefit from the key-lock protection provided on the front and rear doors to keep prying hands out of the interior. Filtered vents circulate air from top to bottom and seem abundantly adequate for the device's given dimension.

The Infinidisc itself generates about as much noise as a typical network server. With the front door closed, it was not possible to hear the robotic action from a few feet away, which should make the unit suitable for production environments.

The rear panel features an RS-232 port for robotics control, but the jukebox will also support full control via SCSI-2 connectors. This control includes verifying CD-ROM disc locations, drive loading, carousel rotation, and the like. An RS-422 port in the rear enables users to daisy-chain two Infinidiscs together, but no more--that daisy-chaining is limited to two devices reflects a SCSI issue, not a Cygnet one. Since each SCSI host adapter can accommodate only six CD-ROM drives, users can link only one four-drive Infinidisc to a two-drive unit in the SCSI chain. Adding greater capacity means creating a different adapter/Infinidisc combination.