SONY BW-RU101 PDD - Page 6

- Installation/Package

We received at our labs, the external USB2.0 version with the codename BW-RU101. There's no retail package to speak of, just the bare drive along with power cable, USB2.0 connection cable, a printed manual in 5 languages and a CD with corresponding software. In addition, SONY sent use four (4) PDD media , 2 recordable (PDDW23B) and 2 re-writable (PDDRW23B). The drive can be found with an attached price tag of $2500~$3000, while the media is available for $45. The drive is available in three models, internal (BW-F101), external USB2.0 (BW-RU101) and external SCSI (BW-RS101). A 19-inch rack-mount auto changer is available that provides up to 1.56TB storage capacities.

The drive's design is attractive to the eye, due to the blue drop down bezel. The front is rather simple with the Sony, PDD Data and 23GB logos. Also on the front panel are the power led, activity led (green when idle, orange when reading/writing), eject button and emergency eject hole which has a protective rubber cover.

On the back of the drive, we can find the function switches (mainly used to force CAV mode), the power connector, the on/off switch and the USB2.0 connection interface. As we stated during the introduction, the drive includes a rotation fan and a special internal air cooling system that prevents dust from entering inside the drive.

Below we can see the various modes that can be activated with the available switches: