Sony Doubles Tape Storage Capacity

September 28th, 2006: Sony’s fifth-generation AIT-5 tape format will be hitting shelves shortly, doubling the capacity of its predecessor with 400GB of space.

The increase in space, however, does not mean data migration headaches as the new drive is completely backwards compatible with AIT-3, AIT-3Ex and AIT-4 media.

Sony says that with a 3.5” form factor and 8mm media cassettes, the AIT-5 is the smallest tape technology to a native capacity of 400GB and a sustained native transfer rate of up to 24 MB/second.

With 2.6:1 data compression, the AIT-5’s 400GB of space can also be blown out to 1.04TB per cartridge, with transfer performance reaching 225G per hour.

“AIT-5 demonstrates our commitment to an aggressive product roadmap to double storage capacity from one AIT generation to the next,” says Vincent Bautista, Sony Australia’s Product Manager for Magnetic Storage. “Our goal is to provide an extensive range of AIT products that are scalable through multiple generations and interface options, ensuring maximum choice and flexibility to help businesses meet their growing data backup, archiving and disaster recovery needs.”

The AIT-5 drives, media and autoloaders will be available from November. No pricing is currently available.

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