I had a few questions regarding mass storage using Magneto Optical and
Rewritable CD (CD-RW?).

What does PD stand for and how does it work?  I have been told that it is not
the same as CD-RW.

Who makes CD-RW drives and jukebox/towers?

What are the benefits and downfalls of CR-RW and MO drives for mass storage?

Are CR-RW disks actually readable in regualr CD-ROM drives?

Is any special software required to operate the devices?

Does anyone know of any reviews that have good information?

CD-RW uses the same effect and the composition of the media itself is
substantially the same.  However, PD uses a cartridge and CD-RW doesn't.  
Also the physical and logical formats are different.  I am pretty sure that
PD uses cylindrical tracks, while CD-RW uses the spiral tracks inherited
from CD audio.

Hope that helps,

PD is NOT the same as CD-RW.  It is also not the same as MO.
The media is not interchangable, although I have seen at least
one PD drive that could handle reading (not writing) CD's.

Benefits of M0 - extremely stable media. Light, reasonable heat (< 200
degrees F) and magnetics don't harm it.  Good transfer rates now at
1.5MB/sec on
up (expect to write at about half the read rate).  CD-R is not
as stable a media.  I am unsure about the CD-RW media. Ricoh
claims a 30year life with 1000 writes.

CD-RW is much slower than MO (basically a 1x writer is 128kbytes/sec, a
 2x is 256kb/sec, etc.  If the writer is 1x and the media is 74 minutes
in length, then it takes 74 minutes to fill it.) The RICOH writes
at 300Kbytes/second (2x?).

Newer CD-ROM drives can read CD-RW media. Older CD-ROM drives cannot.
The CD-ROM drive must be Multi-Read capable.
The Ricoh web pages have more  detail (http://www.ricohdms.com)

Any CD writer requires special software for the High Sierra file system
format.  I believe all CD-RW and CD-Recordable drives in mass
market come with software, though.
MO drives require special software if you want to use 1024byte
sectored media (rather than 512 byte sectored media).  Also,
write verify is recommended since you cannot tell if the media
is defective on a write operation without it.  Write verify may
require special software on some operating systems.

Actually you're asking about 3 different devices, M-O, PD and CD-RW.

:'> 'What does PD stand for and how does it work?  I have been told that it is not
:'> 'the same as CD-RW.

It is technologically similar in that both PD and CD-RW use phase change
optical storage technology. They are physically and logically not
interchangable.

:'> 'Who makes CD-RW drives and jukebox/towers?

Today the only shipping product is from Ricoh. HP, Phillips, Sony,
Toshiba and others have announced product but they are not shipping
yet.

:'> 'What are the benefits and downfalls of CR-RW and MO drives for mass storage?

M-O devices are supported under Windows95, NT, MacOS, Unix et al as
generic removable disk drives as is PD. CD-RW writes either CD-R or
CD-RW media. CD-RW requires a new File system type.

:'> 'Are CR-RW disks actually readable in regualr CD-ROM drives?

CD-R disks written in CD-RW drives are readable in most any arbitrary
CD-ROM device. CD-RW requires both a modern CD-ROM *AND* software to
support the new file system type.

:'> 'Is any special software required to operate the devices?

Yes, drivers and support for the CD-RW file system.

:'> 'Does anyone know of any reviews that have good information?

There are some web pages. Try CD-RW in your favorite search engine....

:'> 'Any help would be appreciated.  Please send responses via e-mail also.