This was pre PC, actually. They were using them on Acorn RiscPC and A440 machines as SCSI drives, storing large amount (at the time, of course) of medical data and software which was frequently updated. It was a medical research establishment and secure reliable backup was worth the cost of three or four £3k drives and a few hundred quid of disks (1 pack of ten!).

The format has stayed the same all this time, and the data is still readable. The disks have outlasted the original machines, and their replacements, and the replacements for those They even have a couple of the original drives still working.

Expensive, yes, but quality expensive.

pca