StorageTek delivers 9840 Fibre Channel tape drive

"The 9840FC allows customers to think differently about their storage needs and requirements," said Nelson Diaz, StorageTek vice president and general manager of client-server tape. "Now it is possible to do with five 9840s what used to be done with 10 to 20 SCSI attached midrange tape drives.

"With fewer drives and faster access, customers can reduce the number of distributed tape libraries they require, re-centralize their resources -- and get better performance," said Diaz. "That puts the total cost of ownership for this sophisticated technology at a price point comparable to older technologies -- a true breakthrough in storage technology."

The 9840FC's ability to integrate into an arbitrated loop or switch environment allows data centers to directly address today's connectivity and distance issues, and better utilize precious server resources. Native Fibre Channel extends the distance limit to 500 meters, as opposed to the 25 meters SCSI allows, simplifying cabling and, ultimately, device sharing. The 9840FC moves data at up to 20 megabytes per second with 2:1 compression, and can approach 40 megabytes per second at 4:1 compression with highly compressible data. Mid-point load improves search time and speed of first access to data, with as low as an eight second response time. Additionally, 9840 cartridges store up to 20 gigabytes native, so more data is being moved faster. The 9840FC's dual-ported design adds reliability with redundant paths, simplifying fail-over issues.

"StorageTek's 9840FC is designed to be integrated into a SAN environment," said Bob Amatruda, senior analyst, tape and removable storage at IDC. "No costly or complex bridges and converters are needed with the 9840's native Fibre Channel interface."

The 9840FC is the first drive to comply with the ANSI FC-Tape standard. The FC-Tape standard addresses interoperability and device behavior and is one of the first steps in building the infrastructure that will aid in the deployment of SANs.

"Los Alamos National Laboratory must quickly archive and retrieve files of up to many terabytes in size for scientific weapons simulations," stated Gary Grider, technical staff member, Storage Solutions Team, Computing & Information and Communications Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory. "Meeting this need for extremely high streaming data transfer rates requires a large number of high-performance tape transports. The StorageTek Fibre Channel 9840 tape transport has achieved rates of up to 38 megabytes/sec in our environment. The Fibre Channel connectivity also provides the flexibility we require."