Innovative Features of Sony AIT-3 Tape Solution

Nowadays, the business enterprises have to store more detailed information about their customers, products, services along with other traditional content including their video, audio, images. Additionally, other structured business data also has to be stored over longer time period, which is the fundamental requirement of the data retention laws. That is why companies of all sizes now have to deal with larger amounts of critical business data.

Adopting a higher capacity storage solution to accommodate the increasing data volumes is no longer a smart backup strategy, because the business enterprises also have to keep in mind their constraints in management resources, shelf space, power, floor space and budget.

Sony carefully analyzed the ever-changing needs and constraints of the business enterprises and developed the AIT tape format, which achieves industry leading recording density in a small form factor. Sony AIT-3 tape solution is widely used by the data-intensive enterprises, financial industry and the government agencies.

Sony AIT-3 tape products are uniquely positioned as the most reliable and efficient backup solution for today's demanding enterprises. 100GB native information can be held by a Sony AIT3 cartridge. More importantly, Sony has enhanced the data compression capability of AIT drives to 2.6:1. This increases the capacity of AIT-3 tape to 260GB in compressed form.

Sony AIT-3 is a space-efficient solution that is robustly designed to deliver higher data reliability and easy integration with the complex network servers and dynamic backup environments. Sony AIT3 tape drives perform high speed backups at 31 MB/s (compressed mode).

Sony has introduced an advanced protective coating that reduces tape friction and minimizes tape deterioration. Sony AIT3 drives are more advantageous that rival tape technologies in terms of investment protection, because AIT-3 drives are capable of performing write-read operations on AIT-3, AIT-2 and AIT-1 data tapes. Sony AIT3 drives support three generations of AIT format. AIT-3 tape drives offer LVDS and ultra 160 SCSI host interfaces.

Compatible AIT tapes are listed below:

Sony AIT3 tapes
SDX3-100C
SDX3-100W

Sony AIT-1 tapes
SDX1-35C
SDX1-25C

Sony AIT-2 backup tapes
SDX2-50C
SDX2-36C
SDX2-50WA

HP AIT tapes
Q1997A
Q1998A
Q1999A
Cleaning cartridge removes the pollutants and debris from the drive head, so that the drive can carry out its operations with greater reliability throughout its archival life. SDX1-CL is a Sony-branded cleaning cartridge that can be confidently used with AIT 1, AIT 2 and AIT 3 tape drives. Head cleaner system features in all Sony AIT drives, which further elevates the performance level and extends its working life. Larger 18MB data buffer plays an important role in increasing the data throughput.

In-time data availability is very essential for the management to devise their business strategy and take proactive actions. AIT tape technology can help.

Sony AIT-3 drives load the media at a much faster speed than other competing tape technologies. This has been made possible with the new MIC technology. MIC is a small memory chip which empowers the tape drive to fast-forward to the specific data file. On average, the media access and load time of Sony AIT-3 drives are 27 seconds and 10 seconds respectively, which is almost 53 percent faster than rival tape drives.

All device, Software and product names mentioned in the article are trademarks and are sole-property of their owners.