By Bob Conway

This is two-part of a two-part post. Part one discussed HP/Sony working together on the DAT 320.  Today, I'll discuss why the DAT has become the choice for SMBs and also additional information on DAT 320.

So, what makes DAT such a firm favorite for tape based data protection? The Digital Data Storage format for DAT drives was first developed in collaboration between HP and Sony to turn a digital audio recording format (DAT) into a robust and reliable digital data storage format - DDS. Using helical scan technology HP, Sony, Seagate (now part of Quantum via Certance), and other DAT manufacturers were able to respond to small and medium size customer requirements for high capacity, high performance yet affordable data protection. Within a few short years, DAT was out shipping the established quarter-inch and half-inch tape drives of that era and had won the battle against other helical scan technologies such as Exabyte's 8mm technology.

There are a number of reasons why DAT was, and still is, the most popular tape technology for SMBs. Having witnessed some of the issues caused by the proprietary nature of some tape technologies, HP and Sony were committed from the outset to create the first open standard tape format for drive and media manufacturers. Soon after its launch in 1989 there were 13 members of the DDS/DAT Manufacturer Group committed to the development of DAT drives and media. As a result of the open standard for DAT drives and media, customers were freed from being locked-in to the fortunes, pace and direction of single-vendor proprietary tape technologies. DAT customers have always benefited from; wide availability, ease of data interchange, a robust future roadmap and greater competition between the manufacturers leading to lower prices and faster development cycles.

With compressed backup speeds of up to 86 gigabytes (GB) per hour, the DAT 320 will offer up to 320 GB of compressed capacity on a single cartridge - twice the capacity and nearly double the performance of the most current DAT 160 format. It is planned that DAT 320 drives will also consume fewer watts per GB than previous generations. DAT 320 will also read and write to DAT 160 cartridges providing an important level of backwards compatibility and investment protection to existing DAT users.  The media cartridge will be the same size and footprint as today's DAT 160 cartridges. DAT 320 tape drives will be made available with a choice of both USB 2.0 and SAS native interfaces in a range of models, including internal units to fit into servers and workstations, rack-mount kits and stand alone units.

Bob Conway, Manager, Removable Media Devices Future Product Marketing

HP StorageWorks