We reported o­n Sony's Professional Disc for DATA drives back in the day, but now here comes Buffalo with their version.

Buffalo's "BR-PD23U2" is an external optical drive unit supporting the "Professional Disc for DATA" optical disc format which uses a 405nm blue-violet laser. "Professional Disc for DATA" has a 23.3GB storage capacity o­n a single disc, and both rewritable and write-once media will be available.

The special feature of this drive is its supported a maximum transfer speed of 11MB per second thanks to a 16MB cache memory and CAV/CLV automatic optimization mode select - the drive unit is from Sony. Recording o­ne disc takes 43 minutes.

With a USB 2.0 o­nly interface, the unit features a media double-shutter o­n the disc slot as well as a lens cleaning device (automatic lens cleaning brush) to prevent against dust from entering the body. Its size is 199.3 x 306.3 x 59mm (W x D x H), and it weighs 4.5kg. Power is AC100V, and the power consumption is about 20.1W.

Supported models include PC/AT compatible, PC98-NX, and Macintosh - but supported operating systems are Windows XP, 2000, ME, Windows Server 2003, and Max OS X 10.2.7 or above. Included are o­ne writeable media and "DiskDriveTuneUp" from America's Software Architecture Inc., for optimizing the drive. According to Buffalo, the media is a backup solution highly resistant to shocks and heat, and it would optimally replace tape drives (DAT and such) or DVD-RAM. The price is 395,000 yen.