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Tape Drive Considerations

There are many kinds of devices. A few of the most common are listed in the following table.

Device type

Approximate Transfer rate 2:1 (compressed data)

Maximum Capacity (compressed data)

DDS-4

6.0 MB/seconds=21.6 GB/hour

40 GB

AIT-2

12.0 MB/seconds=43.2 GB/hour

100 GB

AIT-3

31.2 MB/seconds=112.3 GB/hour

260 GB

DLT 7000

10.0 MB/seconds=36.0 GB/hour

70 GB

DLT 8000

12.0 MB/seconds=43.2 GB/hour

80 GB

Super DLT

24.0 MB/seconds=86.4 GB/hour

220 GB

Mammoth-2

24.0 MB/seconds=86.4 GB/hour

160 GB

Ultrium (LTO)

30.0 MB/seconds=108.0 GB/hour

200 GB

IBM 9890

20.0 MB/seconds=72.0 GB/hour

40 GB

IBM 3590E

15.0 MB/seconds=54.0 GB/hour

60 GB

Even though a single device may not be able to give the data transfer rate of 200 GB per hour set by our example, using multiple media devices should be able to achieve this aggregate transfer rate. For example, if you are using Ultrium tape drives, you need 2 tape drives to achieve 200 GB per hour, or 5 DLT 8000 drives to achieve the same throughput.