The Sony MDH-10 and MD Data Drive: A Look Back at an Obscure Storage Format

As I sat down to examine this ancient storage device, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. The Sony MDH-10 and MD Data drive is a relic of the mid-1990s, a time when technology was still in its infancy and the internet was just starting to become a thing. With a manual that boasts a transfer speed of up to 150 kilobytes per second, it's clear that this drive was intended to be a serious player in the world of personal computer storage.

Upon initial inspection, I was struck by the sleek design of the MDH-10. The compact case and smooth surface make it a joy to behold, almost like a miniature version of a CD player or a DAT deck. But as I delved deeper into the device, I realized that its appeal went beyond just looks. The mechanism behind the drive is cleverly designed, with a rotating disk and precision-made needles that allow for fast data transfer.

However, it's clear that this drive has some issues. When I tried to write data to one of the MD discs using my system, it took an agonizingly long time - so long in fact that I'm not even sure what speed it was actually going at! The problem seemed to persist even after trying multiple units and ensuring that all necessary drivers were installed. It wasn't until I tried loading Windows 95 and running the MD Audio Player application that I realized that this drive simply wasn't compatible with modern operating systems.

The lack of compatibility was a major blow, but I refused to give up on this ancient technology just yet. I decided to test out my drive using audio MiniDiscs, starting with a retail release of Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell". The disc played seamlessly, and the MD Audio Player application allowed me to browse through the track listing with ease. It was clear that while the drive itself may have had some issues, it still retained its charm as a music player.

Of course, trying to play copyrighted music or other audio content proved to be a major hurdle. The device just wouldn't recognize any non-copyrighted files, and even playing recorded MiniDiscs resulted in an error message that simply said "nope". This left me wondering if there was something fundamental about the drive's architecture that made it incompatible with most forms of digital media.

Despite its limitations, I have to admit that the MDH-10 has grown on me. The idea of being able to store large amounts of data on a compact, reusable disc is still an appealing one - even if it did take up nearly three times as much space and money than competing formats like the Iomega ZIP disk. And let's not forget the sheer satisfaction of listening to music stored on an MD disc, with its crackle-free playback and satisfying mechanical clicks.

In the end, while the Sony MDH-10 and MD Data drive may never have achieved mainstream success, it remains a fascinating relic from a bygone era. Its quirks and limitations only add to its charm, making it a beloved curio among tech enthusiasts and collectors of obscure gadgets.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings and welcome to LGR Oddware!Where we're taking a look at hardware andsoftware that is odd, forgotten, and obsolete.And today's is this little guy right here.This is the Sony MDH-10 and this is a MiniDisc storage devicefor PCs and computers of the early to mid 90s.And it uses MiniDiscs, but perhaps not theformat that you're familiar with exactly ifyou know the MiniDisc audio format.No, this is MD Data and it is a separate thing.Let's go ahead and take a look at this!So today's thing is the Sony MDH-10 portableMD Data drive launched in 1995 at a priceof $769.95 in the US.And this is a computer storage device thatwrites to Sony MiniDiscs, or more specificallythese MD Data discs, a variant that was specificallycreated for devices like the MDH-10.And while they are Sony MiniDiscs and verymuch resemble the MiniDisc audio discs thatyou might be more familiar with like this,they are separate formats.Not entirely compatible with each other andwe'll get into that in a moment.Let's get back to the MD Data format hereand this first generation of them which we'll be looking at today.And in these early days you could store 140megabytes on a single disc, each of whichsold for $30 with a claimed lifespan of morethan a million rewrites with no loss in integrity.And this device uses rewritable MD Data discsbut Sony also developed read-only MD Datadiscs, more in line with CD-ROMs.And these were designed for retail softwaredistribution.And then they also put together an unusualhybrid disc with both read-only and read/writesections on the same disc.The idea was to provide an MD Data formatsuitable for gaming, allowing for saving ofhigh scores and save games alongside the read-onlydata portion of the game itself.Also, as I briefly mentioned earlier, there'san importantdistinction between MD Data and MiniDiscs themselves.So a MiniDisc audio player won't know what to do with an MD Data disc, but an MD Datadisc drive like this one can indeed play MDaudio discs.However, an MD Data player cannot write toMD audio discs, resulting in an oddly limitedrealm of possibilities for devices like theMDH-10.It turns out computer storage was kind ofalways on Sony's mind when it came to MiniDiscand they announced the MD Data format in 1993,about a year after the original MiniDisc.With the MDH-10 being the first device totake advantage of their new medium.Apparently the intention was to replace their1.44 megabyte three and a half inch floppydisk format, which Sony also invented by theway.But after numerous delays, a hefty price tagon the drives themselves, and several competitivereasonably-priced alternatives like the IomegaZIP drive coming around, MD Data never reallystood much of a chance.Especially in the US where volume shipmentsdidn't even happen until around August of 1995.Add to that more expensive discs costing $30for 140 megs compared to $20 for 100 meg ZIPdisks, and the format was pretty much deadon arrival.However, as many tech things do it had longerlegs in Japan, with MD Data finding more ofa foothold with in portable paperless officeproducts like this Sony PDF-W77 Data Eata.I love that name.This is a fascinating machine with a backlit480x640 resolution LCD screenand an integrated MD Data drive.As well as the ability to scan, edit, andstore documents on the MD Data discs.But of course it wasn't cheap, costing nearly$2,000 US dollars in 1999.Apparently it found a foothold in the Japanesebusiness market somewhere in between notebookcomputers and PDAs for a few years at least.And MD Data made its way into a handful ofmultitrack recording decks, digital imagingcapture devices, and digital still camerasusing what they called Picture MD Data discs.The format received a notable update in 1997with MD Data2, offering a 650 megabyte capacityon par with full sized recordable CDs.But this was barely a blip on the radar, onlyappearing in a couple devices in the late90s like the DCM-M1 camcorder, before beingdropped like a bad habit and the format'sdata storage functionality mantle being pickedup by the Hi-MD format in 2004.But that's the end of the format's story,let's go back to the beginning with the MDH-10 here.And the device itself is pretty compact, aclassic kind of Sony design.It's a bit smaller than a ZIP drive, so thatwas a point in its favor.It's also quite lightweight weighing just12 ounces or 340 grams.Of course it would weigh just a little bitmore if you installed batteries, and yes unlessyou plugged it into the wall it will needbattery power.Sony had these -- well not this one exactlythis is a rebuilt one -- these LIP-12 rechargeablelithium ion batteries.And that would just go into the little unitright there.But if you didn't want to rely on the rechargeableones, or maybe those have gone bad, Sony alsohad one of these units right here.The Sony Battery Case.And the way this works is you have this littleplug right there that clicks into place rightwhere the external power supply would go.And then on the bottom there’s a littlewheel here and that just screws down.And there you go.Attachable battery solution that lets youuse double-a batteries, it takes three of them right there.It does make it a bit bulkier but it's a niceoption to have if those lithium-ion batteriesno longer holding a charge and you don't havean external power supply, like me!But yeah let's go ahead and take a look atthe externals of the MDH-10 itself real quickbefore we plug it into our Windows 98 PC andsee what it can do.So yeah.We have on the back here the SCSI interface,a 50 pin connection for plugging into yourstandard SCSI-2 interfaces.And then we also have these four switches,the first one being to terminate the driveand then the other to determine the SCSI ID.On the left side we have the bay for the lithiumion battery, a switch for the power -- andthis powers on into audio playback mode forMiniDisc audio discs.And then data mode for doing all the datastuff,that's what we're mostly gonna be using in this video.AVLS switch here for the automatic volumelimiting system.You know, on or off depending on your preferencesfor MiniDisc audio.And then we have a line out again for theaudio so yeah, if you want to use this justlike a portable MiniDisc player for audio,ya can.Speaking of which you have a remote controlport here, I'll show that in a moment.It's also where you got your headphone out.And then right here that opens up the MiniDiscdrive itself.And of course it just goes in there with anice satisfying sound.And for the curious, I do have the remotecontrol unit that goes along with this.It's a pretty standard thing right there,that just plugs into the interface and italso gives you headphone output.And yeah, you kinda need this if you wantto use it as just a MiniDisc audio playerbecause otherwise you can't control thingslike volume, play, stop, fast-forward, reverse,and all that kind of stuff.There's a hold button there, play mode, andthen this right here is just a passthroughfor these really crappy headphones that itcame with.Guess the fuzzy earpieces came off of mineat some point before I got it.This is not just a standard three-and-a-halfmillimeter connection that plugs into the end of this.So if you don't have those exact headphonesit does seem to be a bit of a problem.But you know, there's a three and a half milconnection for standard headphones right there.But anyway!This does require some software that is specificto the device.The only disc that mine came with is thisinstallation software for Macintosh.I'm not gonna be using this on a Macintoshbecause I don't have one set up at the momentwith SCSI, so I actually downloaded some Windowsdrivers for Windows 9x.So we're gonna try that.Really all we need to do is just plug in aSCSI cable right here.That's that.But yeah, this is the “desk-top” PC setupthat we'll be using there.I like the dash in between the words “desk”and “top” by the way.I don't know, that's charming.And lastly the other side of the cable justplugs into the SCSI port on myLazy Green Giant Windows 98 PC here.I already have this Adaptec SCSI controllerready to go so let's get the software installedand write some data on MiniDiscs!Okay, everything's plugged in, it is on datamode, so let's see if it recognizes.And yes, it does. SCSI ID 1.And we'll just go ahead and get a disc inserted here.So just to check here and see that it is detectedunder disk drives and it is!So that is right there.However we're going to install the driverfor it that I found online for Windows 9x.“Welcome to MD Data world!”Aw do I have to write it to a floppy disk?I do. That's fun.Yeah, that's more like it!Software installed, computer restarted.And if we just attempt to open it throughExplorer like this we're gonna get this“not accessible device is not ready.”And actually if we even try to format it throughWindows it's not gonna let us do that either.It cannot format this drive because “thedevice driver for the disk does not supportformatting” or blah-de-dah-de-dah.So we actually have to use that MD Data utilitythat it came with.This actually does not use FAT32 or any kindof typical file system, it actually has itsown MD Data file system, so that you can switchbetween computer systems at will.So MD Data discs that you write on a PC throughWindows will still be readable in DOS or ona Macintosh or a PC-98, whatever system youhappen to have.There we go, format completed.“Zero bytes defect on disk.”Well, presumably.I didn't do a full format since that can take35 minutes, this quick one just takes a couple.And at this point we should just be able toopen it up in Explorer and there we go!We have a disk drive with approximately 140megabytes, so around a hundred and thirty-fivefree at the moment. So that's cool.And if we wanted to we can, well, run a diskchecker.I mean we don't need to, but... there yougo, “All OK.”We can just copy over canyon.mid for instance.And then paste that there. And there we go.It will write and read like any other filereally.Or if we want to say, copy over CommanderKeen Dreams, we can do that.And yeah it will take a little bit, even forsmaller transfers like that.Because just looking at the manual it actually says the transfer speedis up to 150 kilobytes per second.Which, while being a little over twice thespeed of say a 3.5” inch floppy disk drive,that's about on par with a parallel port Iomega ZIP drive.However as you can see here, I think thereis actually a problem of some kind with myparticular drive, at least for writing data.It takes Way longer than it actually shouldto copy absolutely anything.Like this is less than a megabyte for thisand it's still going, like I don't know why exactly.I've also had problems with it even beingable to read back, like retrieving files thatI've stored onto these MD Data discs.And I've tried multiple ones and they allsort of crap out.The SCSI connection is perfectly fine, everything'sconfigured correctly,I've got drivers and everything.But yeah, if I try to load anything directlyoff of one of these discs, it just won't work.Yeah, “is not a valid Win32 application.”That's a problem.Yeah it's always finding errors anytime Iformat it and then add something to the discit will just mess up!And at this point I've got a disc that isunreadable, so.And just to try to verify that it wasn't Windows 98 or somethingI've booted another setup with Windows 95.And I have some Windows 95 drivers here, solet's just see if this works.And it's not even detecting it, heh!Well I'm just gonna call it here and say thedrive has some problems.Back to Windows 98, we can still do a coupleother things there.I can at least show you what it does withaudio MiniDiscs.So for instance, I have a retail release here:Meat Loaf's “Bat Out of Hell.” [openingcase, inserting disc] And even in data modewe can just go to this MD Audio Player applicationand there we go.So you've got the track listing for the tracks.However, copyrighted musicand YouTube don't really match.So I'm not gonna play you that but...And yes, you can also play recordable MDs.Hehe, and check out this fantastic early/mid-2000s soundtrackthat somebody put together.I do not have a recordable MiniDisc playeror I would have put some non-copyrighted stuffto play back for you on here, sorry aboutthat.So again, I can't really play this stuff eitherbut, you know if you wanted to -- well lemmeme just play DMX here and I'm gonna coverit up with some non-copyrighted stuff.You can just pretend.Yeah, don't you love that “DMX?”Oh and in case you're wondering what happensif you try to open an audio, just normal MiniDiscin there it's just gonna be like, “nope.”It can't do anything about that, the onlyway you can do that is if you were to runthat MiniDisc Audio Player application.Otherwise it's just meant for reading data,whenever it worked anyway.So you know, that's that's about it for theMD Data drive, the MDH-10.So where does all this leave us in terms ofthe Sony MDH-10and MD Data as a storage medium of the mid-90s?Well personally, I dig the idea.I like the look and the feel of it and justthe -- you know, the mechanism and the soundand all that kind of stuff.It's just satisfying.At the same time I can also really begin tosee why it didn't make huge waves in the worldof mid 90s storage tech for personal computers.For one thing its competitors like the IomegaZIP disk were just a lot less expensive.You know, this is almost three times as muchfor the drive itself.And of course the discs were a little morefor -- granted they had 40% more capacitythan the 100 meg ZIP disks of the time.But still you're not getting a whole lot morewith this.And then of course there's also the reliabilityissue, at least in my experience.It's not -- it’s got some problems.But maybe again that's just maybe my unit.Whatever the case may be though I hope thatyou enjoyedtaking a look at this obsolete storage format.And if you’d care for some more LGR Oddware,I do this kind of thing as often as I can!And there are new videos of all sorts everysingle week right here on LGR.So if you enjoyed this kind of thing, thenperhaps you'd like to see any number of theother stuff that I do.I always try to keep it interesting at least.And as always, thank you very much for watching!\n"