Sony Advances Intelligent Tape

May 29th, 2006: Sony aims for the mid-market with the launch of its 150Gb, AIT-3ex tape drive into Australia.

The drive delivers three-times more speed (18 mega-bits per second) than the current AIT-3. As importantly its media is not only compatible with the AIT-4 drives but will, according to Sony, also be useable in the forthcoming AIT-5 units available later in 2006.

Sony has issued a release to the extent that, 'Existing AIT-4 drives will be firmware upgradeable to become read and write compatible to AIT-3Ex media in Q3, 2006. In addition, AIT Turbo media read compatibility in AIT-3Ex drives will be available via a drive firmware upgrade in late Q3. Firmware upgrades for drives for the respective formats will be available to customers to download from the Sony Australia website (www.sony.com.au/datastorage) free of charge.'

The AIT comes in both internal and external configurations and is being positioned to take up what Sony perceives as the growing mid-market requirement for tape.

A Sony spokesman pointed up this strategy, saying, "Our new AIT-3Ex drives are clearly positioned in this segment where they fulfil the more demanding server and workstation system requirements. To support AIT customers as their needs demand higher capacities and speeds, we provide an upgrade path from previous generations and ensure that once data is stored on AIT-3Ex media."

The drives come with Ultra 160 SCSI LVD/SE interface that is supported with a 96Mb buffer. Importantly for this back-up solution, the MTBF figure (Mean Time Between Failure) of 400,000 hours at 100% duty and a typical head life of 50,000.

Pricing for the drive in its various configurations is:

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