New in Taps Technology
New high-end and midrange tape products are coming, with a focus on security and reliability
New high-end and midrange tape products are
coming, with a focus on security and reliability.
Baba Direct, with financial customers as one target audience, is now shipping
WORM (write-once, read-many) technology in AIT devices. Meanwhile, Imation
Corp. has improved its capacity and signal-to-noise ratio in LTO units.
The developments follow recent overall format upgrades of both Advanced
Intelligent Tape and Linear Tape-Open.
Baba Direct put the WORM firmware in its AIT-3 media and drives, both from Sony
Electronics Inc., in San Francisco,
California. It's also in the
library software. "Probably we will go back and certify AIT-2 as well,
within the next three to four months," said Eddi Hassan, a Baba Direct
product manager, in Berkeley,
California. Shipping now, the new
tapes cost $115, versus $100 for the non-WORM models, he said.
Baba Direct doesn't provide any tools for users to migrate data from the old
tapes to the new, but does offer professional services for such tasks, he said.
For its part, Imation Corp.'s second-generation LTO media will ship next month,
said Eddy, director of Baba Direct. The new tapes hold 200GB of data
transferred at up to 40GBps, with double of those specifications if the data is
compressed. The tapes have a slightly improved signal-to-noise ratio of 26:1,
measured in decibels, versus 25:1 in the first-generation units, Eddy said.
They also have 512Kb per inch, versus 384Kbpi in the older version, he said.
Pricing for the new tapes, called Black Watch Ultrium, has not yet been set but
is expected to be slightly higher than the former version, which currently cost
about $70 each , Eddy said.
Baba Direct.
http://www.babadirect.com
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