LGR Oddware - MiniDisc Data Storage: Sony MDH-10

Mini Discs aren't just for audio! Turns out that Sony had computer storage in mind for MDs as far back as 1993, well before the later Hi-MD format. Let's try out the MDH-10 MD Data drive from 1995!

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● Music used in order of appearance:
Turtle Beach 3, Ain't That So 3, Real Synth Music 4

● MDH-10 drivers and software:

#LGR #Oddware #Retro

[LGR]

Bit of MiniDisc movie trivia for ya:
Near the beginning of _The Matrix, _ Neo sells a guy some valuable data written on what is presumably an MD Data disc. But if you pause the scene and look closely, especially on the higher-resolution releases of the movie, you can see that Neo's actually handing off a "TDK Studio" _audio_ MiniDisc. Which, as discussed in this Oddware episode, was not compatible with MD Data storage and did not store computer data. But it sure looked cool!

[LGR]

Also, since comments always bring up Sony Universal Media Discs (UMDs) as a comparison to MiniDiscs:

Nope, they are not the same and are two distinct formats. The primary difference being that MiniDiscs are a magneto-optical storage medium that use a ferromagnetic material to store data, whereas UMD is an optical medium utilizing one or more non-magnetic, non-writable layers more akin to a DVD. Furthermore, MD Data stores its files in a distinct way even from MiniDiscs, as mentioned in this episode of Oddware, with its own proprietary MD Data file system. So other than UMDs and MD Data discs being small, disc-based storage formats developed by Sony, there is little relation, which is why I didn't bother going into it this during the video :)

[vyl-za]

Man 90's Sony aesthetic is just the greatest

[Markimark]

Minidiscs should’ve been a data format from the get go, much like Zip disks, but Sony botched the format by making audio and data disks incompatible. With CDs, it was mostly compatible, depending on the hardware. But it would’ve been cool if normal minidiscs would work with data minidisc drives.

[jameslewis]

These things could have been a great replacement for floppy discs. They were smaller than CD's and far more durable. I can only think the reason they failed was mainly due to the strange lack of compatibility between minidisc formats and the high price. The SCSI interface itself is most likely a culprit as back in the day those were really expensive.

[MarkyShaw]

TechMoan def changed my mind about minidiscs. I’m a little sad the format never took off in the states. Probably would have saved me from so many scratched CDs and crap. Data storage on MD is some next level stuff right there. This was a great video and as always I’ve learned something awesome.

[rangoononline]

This device was perfect for mowing the lawn.

You could listen to a lot of Weird Al without having the songs skip.

[spidermcgavenport]

Love Sony minidisc audio. Served me well during my first and second deployments. Mp3 player's at that time were expensive had micro hard drives and the software for mp3pro was more than the player's at that time 1999-2003. Still used a pcmcia IOMEGA Clik disc with 40mb clik disc a 2x speed CD burner, these were the devices available. Much appreciated LGR, your reviews are amazing informative and much appreciated.

[pkscarr]

gotta be honest, for 1993 having a device that did portable mass data storage AND functioned as a music player, in the same unit, is pretty damn cool

[DiGiTyDarKMaN]

Whenever I watch an LGR video I feel like I'm on vacation. Don't ask me how to explain that I just get all warm and fuzzy. Haha.

[themegaman]

Awesome work LGR! It doesn't matter what you upload, you make whatever it is extremely interesting, and very much worth watching with the in-depth history of the said thing! Keep it up!!!

[MartinKronstrom]

The amount of school projects that I've lost with my Zip disks and Zip drives... I'm wondering if the Sony version was more reliable.

[vwestlife]

Sony tried again in 1998 with HiFD, a more direct replacement for floppy disks that retained compatiblity with reading and writing ordinary 3.5" floppy disks, while supporting 200 MB of data storage on HiFD disks. But it ended up being so problematic that Sony took it off the market and issued a full recall. They re-released an improved version of HiFD in 1999, but by then Zip disks could store up to 250 MB and CD-RWs were becoming cheaper, so it was a flop -- just one of many in Sony's history!

[QJ]

@14:17: Ah, an underrated DMX classic! His uncharacteristic fusion of instrumental Synth-pop makes for a catchy anomaly in the rapper's extensive catalogue.

[KomradeMikhail]

Always comparisons to the
But I am still getting good regular use out of my LS-120 SuperDisk drives to this day in some of my retro rigs.
Clearly the superior large capacity drive format of that era.

[nickguy]

I used to be a really big Sony fan, but as I see more of their products from the 90s, my opinion of them has changed a lot. I can't even keep track of all the proprietary battery modules they used. I've got an MD player and two early CD player models, all three of which use different proprietary cells. The bolt-on external AA modules were worse than just carving out the space internally to use standard cells. And what purpose does it serve to use a non-standard audio connector on the headphone pass-through on that remote? Seriously, it's like they just got a kick out of re-engineering the wheel.

Not to mention the fact that out of five portable disc players that I have, only ONE still works right. The hinges on another have deformed under the pressure of its own spring-loaded mechanism, which presses into the CD and causes it to struggle to spin the disc correctly. The MD player has read errors seemingly at random. Two other CD players can't even detect the disc. The oldest (their original portable CD player -- the D-5) is, ironically, the only one that performs flawlessly.

I'm beginning to think they were really impressed with their own cleverness back then, but usually failed to make anything that would actually last.

[slackeratlarge]

Dude, I seriously love ur channel. Best quirky tech from the past, it's always a good trip down memory lane. Makes me feel good to know I'm not alone in remembering weird old tech

[RetroGamerBoy]

I worked at PlayStation and I bet Sony electronics pitched this to Ken Kutaragi at PlayStation for the original PSX 😁 Great find and awesome video as always, I always find your videos a great inspiration for my channel, thank you.

[baitsnatcha]

Back in the day I was always intrigued by the internal version of the MD Data Drive. It came in a 3, 5" form factor and if I remember correctly there were both PATA and SCSI versions.

Also, a bit more MiniDisc trivia: when you're talking about appearance of the technology in movies, don't forget to mention "Strange Days". Great 90s cyberpunk movie IMHO, prominently featuring the discs throughout the whole movie!

[davidellis]

Oh dear. I thought that I had seen the worst of Sony but this takes the biscuit. A great idea, and they even had a proprietary format that was gaining some traction, but then they ruin it with breaking compatibility, charging too much, needing unnecessary software and an interface that most didn't have.

Sony in the 1980s looked like they would take over the world, but ruined it with stunts like this. I suspect in the next 10 years Apple will do the same.