What are the Tape drives

Tape drives read date and write  it onto a tape. Tape drives provide a diverse range of options, capable of handling everything from single-PC backup to large corporate Server rooms. They are usually relatively simple to setup and allow you to maintain a reliable unattended backup. Tape capacity keeps getting larger to match drives that are equally growing is size. Tape drives have data capacities of  a few hundred megabytes to  a hundred terabytes. Their transfer speeds also vary considerably. Main disadvantage of tape drives is that they are sequential-access devices, which means that to read any particular block of data, you need to read all the preceding blocks. This makes them much too slow for general-purpose storage operations. However, they are the least expensive media for making backups.

Formats and technologies:

4mm tapes are the standard for DAT (digital audio tape). 4mm tapes are physically the smallest of the magnetic tapes and therefore take up less storage space.  4mm tape systems are designed for backing up large amounts of data where speed is not essential.

Helical scan technology can be found in 4mm DAT / DDS /8mm / AIT and Mammoth tape drive products. As compared to linear technology, helical scan uses more than double the amount of moving parts. Tension devices, pins and rollers move and manipulate the media through acute wrap angles and a complex tape path. The data is also packed much tighter on media with much less area than linear technology media. This higher density of recording data on the tape can result in some difficulties reading,  detecting problem  and correction of  data.
Linear Recording Technology. Linear technology can be found in Tandberg Travan NS, SLR and DLTtape drive products. Linear recording technology writes data to tracks running along the length of the tape.  One advantage of this recording method is that files can be quickly found and accessed  because the read/write head can quickly step up or down to the correct track. Also if a file is in the middle of a full tape, the head can also adjust to the correct track, reducing the need to search the entire tape.

QIC: The quarter-inch-tape cartridge (QIC) was first introduced in 1972 by the 3M company as a means to store data from telecommunications and data acquisition applications. The QIC format employs a linear (or longitudinal) recording technique in which data is written to parallel tracks which run along the length of the tape. As time passed, the comparatively inexpensive QIC drive became an accepted data storage system - especially for standalone PCs. Today the most popular QIC tape standards are the QIC-40 and QIC-80 and these use a small cartridge that is about the size of an Audio Compact Cassette but is twice as thick.

Mammoth: Introduced in 1996, Mammoth is a more advanced and reliable technology  developed by Exabyte. Mammoth supports up to 64 variable-length partitions. A partition is a segment of tape that is used as an entity into itself. Data within a predefined partition can be erased and new data written in its place. Exabyte's Mammoth-2 drive set new standards of high speed and capacity in the tape market when it was introduced in late 2000.  Mammoth-2 (M2™) is the first 8mm native Fibre Channel tape drive.

 

AIT: Advanced Intelligent Tape™ - is a Sony brand of tape cartridge. With a capacity of up to 35GB and a data transfer rate of up to 4MB/sec., Sony's AIT-1 drive offers an ideal entry-point to AIT. The technology will offer up to 100GB per cartridge with AIT-3, all the way to 800GB per cartridge before the end of the decade. AIT-3 provides throughput of 12 MB/sec (24MB/sec with compression), and has a per tape capacity of 100 GB (200 GB with compression).

ADR: OnStream Advanced Digital Recording (ADR) technology, originally developed by Philips Electronics, is protected by 67 patents, including pending. With a storage capacity of up to 120 GB the products of the company are particularly suitable for the backup of servers and workstations in the SoHo and SME segment as well for larger enterprises. ADR is based on revolutionary 8-channel array technology that allows the solid-state design to read and write eight tracks of data simultaneously. This technology delivers exceptional transfer rates and data reliability while maximizing media life and minimizing audible noise. 

DLT: DLTtape technology is the de facto standard for backup and archiving of business-critical data. The DLTtape logo ensures media compatibility with the installed base. The first of the next generation of Super DLTtape drives is the SDLT 220 drive. It operates at a native capacity of 110 GB and a native transfer rate of 11MB/second.

LTO: Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology was developed jointly by HP, IBM and Seagate to provide a clear and viable choice in an increasingly complex array of tape storage options. LTO technology is an open format technology which means that users will have multiple sources of product and media. The "open" nature of LTO technology also provides a means of enabling compatibility between different vendors' offerings. The Accelis format is the "fast access" implementation of LTO technology. The Ultrium format is the "high capacity" implementation of LTO technology. Ideally suited for backup, restore, and archive applications, the Ultrium tape format will establish a new benchmark for large volume backup and archive.

VXA: VXA is the trademarked name for a tape technology developed by Ecrix. VXA incorporates three major innovations in tape storage: Discrete Packet Format (DPF)™ , Variable Speed Operation (VSO)™ , and OverScan Operation (OSO)™ . VXA technology also permits drive and alignment mechanisms to be much simpler and less sensitive to environmental factors, resulting in enhanced manufacturability and significantly lower cost.