PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition

TrueX Drives

TrueX drives are no longer made, but were an interesting historical footnote. TrueX drives use CLV with a difference. Conventional CD-ROM drives read data with one weak LASER beam. TrueX drives split a stronger LASER beam into seven separate beams, which read seven sections of the track simultaneously. The drive combines those signals into one high-speed data stream, which allows a TrueX drive running at 9.5X CLV to provide DTR similar to a 52X CAV drive.

Because they spin discs slowly, TrueX drives are quieter than CAV drives with similar DTR. But TrueX drives have several drawbacks. TrueX drives sold for twice the price of comparable CAV drives, vibrate excessively, and have mediocre random access performance. They generate so much heat that the drive becomes quite warm during sustained operations, and discs may become uncomfortably hot to touch. Finally, Kenwood never released Windows 2000 or XP drivers for the following TrueX models:

• UCR415 and UCR416 (52X SCSI)

• UCR04010 (40X, 42X ATAPI)

• UCR411 and UCR412 (52X ATAPI)

• UCR420 (62X ATAPI)

• UCR421 (72X ATAPI)

We don’t use TrueX drives at all. If we disassembled an old system with a TrueX drive, we’d toss it in the trash. New ATAPI CD-ROM drives cost less than $25, so attempting to recycle an old TrueX drive simply isn’t worth it, even if the operating system supports it.