History 2002: StorageTek T9940 Tape Drive Hits Record

StorageTek’s T9940B, at $39,500 is far from the cheapest drive available, but it certainly offers the highest capacity, native 200GB, and transfer rates, native 30MB/s, currently on the market, with the exception of a few exotic products such as Sony’s DTF-2 (200/24) or Ampex’s DST 314 (660/20).

The new model is a follow-up to the T9940A at 60/10, still with longitudinal recording and the same proprietary cartridges ($100 a piece) manufactured by Imation.

The media have the same form factor as IBM’s 3590 (the 3590H is 60/14), although they are not compatible.

Available in November, the new T9940B is read – though not write – compatible with the previous system and incorporates a 2Gb FC interface. Average access time for a file is 41s, not including 18s for tape loading.

A WORM cartridge to be called 9940 VolSafe is planned for the 5.25-inch full height tape drive in early 2003 for legal applications.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 177 on October 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.