RDX is a disk-based removable storage format developed by ProStor Systems Incorporated in 2004. In May 2011, Tandberg Data GmbH acquired the RDX business from ProStor Systems including intellectual property and key members of ProStor's RDX engineering team. RDX is intended as a replacement of tape storage. RDX removable disk technology consists of portable disk cartridges and an RDX dock. RDX cartridges are shock-proof 2.5-inch Serial ATA hard disk drives and are advertised to sustain a 1 meter (39 in) drop onto a concrete floor and to offer an archival lifetime up to 30 years and transfer up to 650GB/hr.
Hard disk cartridges capacities are 320 GB, 500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB, 2 TB, 3 TB, 4 TB, and 5 TB. Solid-state cartridges' capacities run from 64 GB to 512 GB per medium, doubling each increment; or as WORM media from 320 GB to 1 TB. Dell markets RDX cartridges under the trade name RD1000; a teardown reveals they contain a standard laptop drive enclosed with silicone bumpers, but the drive cannot be accessed if removed from the cartridge and interfaced by another means.[1]
RDX is sometimes compared with Iomega REV, a formerly competing technology. Both technologies allow an ordinary user to remove and replace the cartridge containing the recording medium without special training. However REV places the read/write heads in the drive instead of inside the cartridge, which means that the drive's loading/unloading mechanism must mechanically insert heads into and remove them from the cartridge through a physical hole.[2] By eliminating the need for this, RDX turns the drive into a dock—whose loading mechanism simply establishes an electronic connection to the cartridge.[3]
References
edit- ^ Deichmann, Pete (16 August 2013). "Hack the Dell RD1000 / Imation RDX?" (video). YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 24 April 2018.
Dell makes these, Imation mkes one called the RDX. ... The cartridges are interchangeable. ... Inside the cartridge you'll find a standard-looking 2.5-inch laptop hard drive. ... It's got a pair of silicone bumpers that just peel right off. And here we have a Fujitsu 160GB Serial ATA hard drive; appears to be totally standard. ... Either there is some proprietary thing in the way these Fujitsu drive are configured in the BIOS or in the way they are formatted....
- ^ Lui, Gough (11 December 2016). "Canb2016: Special 2 – iomega REV 35Gb/90Gb Drives & Disks". Dr. Gough's Techzone. Gough Lui. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
A thick metal swing-door front with rubber gasket covers the cartridge opening. The latch is released from the underside to reveal … [photo] … four exposed contacts for driving the spindle motor, a single platter, and a plastic ramp for loading the heads.
- ^ "Technology Advantages of the RDX ® QuikStor" (PDF). Tandberg Data. Tandberg Data. 2013. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
Inserting a media to a drive is just done via an electronical connection without any physical load of the media like it is done with tape.
External links
edit- RDX QuikStor, Overland-Tandberg, retrieved 2020-07-06