Sun unfolds 1TB of tape

Sun has introduced the world’s first tape kit to hold one terabyte of raw data, the StorageTek T10000B.

Sun’s new T10000B tape drive can read and write existing T10000A tape media and also reformat it at the new, higher density. A library of T10000A media can, in theory, now hold the same information as before but on half the number of tape cartridges.

The LTO-4 tape format holds 800GB of raw data while IBM’s TS1120 format stores up to 500GB of raw data on its 3592 tape. IBM has a terabyte 3592 format on its roadmap and the forthcoming LTO-5 format will reach, it is expected, 1.6TB.

The new StorageTek drive transfers data at 120MB/sec, the same as the current T10000A, which holds only – only! – 500GB. Actually the T10000B moves the tape at a slower speed than the ‘A’ drive but, because it has two read/write heads, attains the same I/O bandwidth.

Full article: channelregister.co.uk