Optical: JVC MC8100U
The MC-8100U is a digital storage system from JVC Professional. It's primarily tailored for users who need vast amounts of nearline networked archiving storage with random access.
The MC-8100U features industry-standard removable media and you have the choice of any combination of drives including DVD-RAM and CD-RW. It can feature up to four drives while the 8200U and the 8600U can hold up to six drives. The MC-8100U can house 100 discs, which means it can store up to 940GB of data on double-sided DVD-RAM media. The 8200U can store 1.88TB while the 8600U a whopping 5.64TB of data.
All the 8000 series jukeboxes use a high-speed disc changer and flip mechanism. The flip mechanism comes in handy if you're using double-sided media. It will actually flip a disc on the fly, which eliminates the additional time it would normally take to transport media to a specified location. You can also buy an optional disc printer. The printer is fully automated which means it will print labels in full colour directly onto the discs after recording.
The JVC jukebox didn't ship with any software; you have to purchase that from a third party supplier. We downloaded a trial version of PointSoft Jukebox Manager off the Internet. This worked quite well with the JVC jukebox. It detected the jukebox first up and managed it without any problems.
The JVC performed as we had expected. We knew it wasn't going to be too quick at moving data onto disc. It managed to write to at approximately 400KBps and read data from disc at 2.44MBps, which is pretty much what JVC said it should do. The JVC was also the most expensive per GB.
| Product: | JVC MC8100U |
| Price: | AU$19,999 |
| Vendor: | JVC |
| Phone: | 02 9370 8888 |
| Web: | www.jvc-australia.com |
| Interoperability: |
Loads of third-party software available for most platforms. |
| Futureproofing: |
½
Provision for multiple drives and label printer. |
| ROI: |
½Most expensive archiving solution, but cost of optical jukeboxes has dropped considerably in the last year or so. |
| Service: |
1-year parts and labour warranty, option to extend. |
| Rating: |
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