CD and DVD-ROM may be the most economical media for distributing data, but hard disk is the medium of choice for fast delivery of this data to network clients.  New Imaging and caching technologies enable you to create CD images onto hard disk or cache portions of the CD/DVD for improved performance, increased capacity and a lower cost. The low cost per megabyte of hard disk technology has made it a very cost-effective medium for archiving CD/DVD-ROM based data.

Benefits of Imaging and Caching to Hard Disk

Performance
Due to the fact that hard disks are a higher performance data distribution medium than CD/DVD Readers, serving images and cached data from hard disk greatly improves network client access times and CD/DVD based application performance.  Disk drives provide a faster data transfer rate than CD/DVD readers. Most important of all, however, is the effect on data access times. You can access data over 10 times faster from hard disk than from a CD/DVD reader. This is critical, especially in multi-user environments. Disk drives are also constantly spinning, as opposed to CD/DVD readers which lay idle until accessed, and CD changers which have to shuffle discs into a shared reading mechanism. Therefore, you avoid CD/DVD reader spin-up and CD changer shuffling delays when accessing data from hard disk.

Capacity and Space
When imaging CDs onto hard disk, you only use as much hard disk space as required by the data on the CD.  Determining how many CDs you can network is now a function of data capacity as opposed to the number of CD readers or Disc Changers needed in a tower. Storing CD images on disk drives enables you to store more information on less real estate. For instance, a 36 GB disk drive can hold 52 full capacity CD images.

Scalability
CD imaging to hard disk gives you more flexibility for growth than conventional CD towers. You no longer have to add another tower or server when you need more capacity. If your CD library outgrows your hard disk space, simply add another disk drive and you can expand your capacity while maintaining centralized management.

Cost
Storing CD-ROM images on hard disk is more cost effective than storing them in CD readers. For example, it cost more to purchase 14 CD readers than it does to purchase a 9 GB SCSI disk drive, which holds 14 full capacity CD images.  A DakotaROM with one 36 GB disk drive can hold 52 plus CD images. That's equivalent to a 56 Bay, 8 foot tall, 1000+ lb. Rack Mount CD Server that costs you a fortune in shipping alone.

Security
Once a CD/DVD is safely imaged to a disk drive, the network administrator can share out the content among multiple users and set permissions on the volume without the need for the CD/DVD-ROM to be in the reader.  The original CD/DVD-ROM can be put away in a secure place to avoid damage or loss.