Lets talk about the current state of Magneto Optical Disks. The product category has seen a tumultuous couple of years and now is as good a time as any to reflect.
Backstory:
For the past 10+ years all Magneto Optical disks have been manufactured by two companies: Sony & Mitsubishi Chemical (dba Verbatim). All MO disks made and sold recently regardless of the brand have been OEM from either of those two companies. Roughly 4-5 years ago Mitsubishi Chemical decided the market was no longer large enough to support and exited the category. This drove up the price a bit because now Sony was the only manufacturer producing the product. Roughly 1.5 years ago Sony announced that they too were exiting the category. This left zero companies producing the much needed optical disks.
The supply dwindled – the price increased as available inventory dried up on a worldwide scale. In some cases prices have increased 600% on certain capacities!!
Current Situation:
Lots of folks still rely on this media to back up and archive data in the Medical, Aviation, Telecommunication and Defense channels. Many times they simply cannot update their systems to new archiving media. Procuring new media for our customers that rely upon MO disks on the open market is frankly way to expensive and more often than not impossible.
With that in mind we decided to begin the process of sourcing and recertifying Magneto Optical Disks. It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Here is one of the most rugged, redundant forms of optical media that is capable of hundreds of thousands of read/write cycles that is honestly mostly used once and then stored for legal purposes.
How do we do it?
1. We source disks from internal customers that have purchased disks from us or other vendors and whose data has exceeded it’s archival life.
2. We ship/receive the parcels via certified methods with tamper resistant seals and check in each and every disk.
3. Each disk is collected, categorized and inspected upon receipt for critical defects.
4. Each categorized Magneto Optical Disk is then inspected by a second digital media expert with over 16 yrs experience, he removes the labels, inspects the ODSM (optical disk shutter mechanism) for functionality and cleans any ink from the disk itself.
5. The disk is then degassed multiple times using a proprietary process that runs at the SCSI Dos level.
6. A read/write test is performed to ensure functionality
7. Magneto Optical Disk is inspected by the third and final person who passes the disk for final assembly.
8. The MO Disk is packaged in a brand new cardboard sleeve and shrink wrapped.
9. The Magneto Optical Disk has now been fully recertified and is cataloged/received into our ERP for future sales orders.
While these procedures do have costs associated with them and we are unable to provide pre-discontinued pricing, often times the prices of re-certified media are 1/2 to 1/3 of the cost of new sealed media. They are 100% guaranteed to function the same as the new sealed stock. We also offer a more lenient return policy on this media.
Currently we are only making this re-certfied media available to our current customers but keep your eyes peeled. It will be making it’s debut on our website www.techwarestore.com and available to the general public shortly.
Update!
Sony 2.3 re-certified MO Disk are now available for purchase on our website.
What will this mean for Rimage CD and DVD equipment customers? Hard to know for sure, but here are some educated guesses.
JVC / Taiyo Yuden announced back in June of this year that they would halt all CD and DVD disc manufacturing by the end of 2015. This was a shock to many users, but not a huge surprise to industry insiders.
Here is an example of some hard to find discs – Osaka brand. Never heard of this brand before. These discs might be from the 90s? Wasn’t Mr. Miyagi from Osaka? Upon inspection these are actually Mitsubishi made discs. Great quality, and made in Japan prior to the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters. No radiation….