Sony's San Jose-based Tape Storage Solutions Division said its Super Advanced Intelligent Tape (S-AIT) drive and cartridge, which sports a 500GB native capacity and a 1.3TB compressed capacity, will begin shipping to original equipment manufacturer partners this month.
S-AIT exploits Sony's midrange AIT technology, but in an extended 5.25-in. drive. As an example of the capacity of an S-AIT tape configuration, a 100-cartridge library could store up to 1.3 petabytes of data.
Standalone S-AIT drives are expected to have a price of $10,000, and automation-ready drives will start at an estimated $13,000.
Last week Quantum announced that it wanted to boost its Super Digital Linear Tape product to 640GB and 64MB/sec. transfer rates by mid-2003.
IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Seagate Technology are the leaders in market share in super tape drive technology, with linear tape-open (LTO) products. HP is expected to ship its second-generation LTO 2 product this month. It will have 200GB native capacity and about 30MB/sec. throughput. Sony's S-AIT drive also has a 30MB/sec. native throughput rate.
