Magneto-Optical storage systems have been around for quite some time but have not penetrated the consumer market like the average 3.5" hard drive has. Medical institutions, US military facilities, and many businesses use the MO technology to reliably backup important documents as additional and preventative measures for retaining confidential information. However, the average consumer has historically not purchased MO technology to benefit their own storage system.

In this article, we're going to take a look at MO technology, and how its reliability is actually just as good as...and better, than the average 3.5" hard drive.

Magneto-Optical Technology

Basically put, a laser beam (tuned at around 680nm and 0.7 microns in diameter) is projected onto the media disk (made mostly of polycarbonate), where the beam heats a particular layer on the disk to Curie Point (the temperature at which a magnetic substance loses its coercive force, which is 200