Quantum Unveils Tape Technology Road Map, New Autoloader

The company, based here, is following two parallel road maps: one based on enterprise-class SuperDLT technology, and another based on entry-level technology, now called ValueDLT, inherited from the acquisition of Benchmark Storage Innovations, a tape drive and automation vendor, said Charlene Murphy, vice president of marketing at Quantum.

Because Quantum previously had a 20 percent equity stake in Benchmark, the companies' tape drives already had compatibilities, which are now being carried forward over the next couple of years to enable customers to move from entry-level to enterprise-class tape as needed, said Murphy. "We make the broadest range of tape products with the most compatibility," she said.

On the ValueDLT side, Quantum expects to unveil the DLT VS160 drive with 160 Gbytes compressed capacity and a compressed throughput of 16 MBps during first quarter of 2003, Murphy said. It will be backward read-compatible with the company's DLT VS80, DLT 1 and DLT 4000 drives. In the second half of 2004, Quantum plans to unveil the DLT VS320, with a capacity of 320 Gbytes and a throughput of 30 MBps, followed two years later by the DLT VS600, which will have double the capacity and throughput.

On the SuperDLT side, plans call for Quantum to unveil the SDLT 600, with 600 Gbytes of capacity and a throughput of 64 MBps, in mid-2003. It will be backward read-compatible with the SDLT 320, SDLT 220, DLT 8000, DLT 7000, DLT VS80 and DLT VS160, said Murphy. Due out in late 2004 will be the SDLT 1200, with 1,200 Gbytes of capacity and 120-MBps throughput, and that is slated to be followed in 2006 by the SDLT 2400, she said.

New generations of the SuperDLT and the ValueDLT drives will be read-compatible with two previous generations of the same tape line. In addition, new SuperDLT drives are slated to have read-compatibility with the same generation of ValueDLT drive, she said.

Backward compatibility is key, said Dan Carson, vice president of marketing and business development at Open Systems Solutions, a Yardley, Pa.-based solution provider. "A lot of customers have investments in tape," Carson said. "[Compatibility is a check box, if not a requirement."

If customers start from scratch with tape automation, they'll have several choices, including LTO, said John Zammet, president of HorizonTek, a Huntington, N.Y.-based solution provider, adding that tape libraries had some difficulties with the previous generation of SDLT drives. "There's so much legacy DLT tape out there," he said.

Maintaining compatibility between the enterprise and value lines is a good idea because clients can get into the DLT technology at a lower price and then upgrade when the economy improves, saving thousands of dollars, said Zammet.

But Carson said that's not necessarily the case. "If someone is on the value line track, they probably have no intention of making the move to the enterprise side, where performance and capacity are more important," he said. "It's probably a smaller company that understands the need for backup and disaster recovery."

Besides the new tape road map, Quantum executives on Tuesday unveiled the ATL ValueLoader, a 2U chassis with one VLS80 tape drive and room for eight tape cartridges, giving it a maximum capacity of 640 Gbytes and a throughput of 21.6 Gbytes per hour.

The new autoloader is aimed at SMB solution providers. Quantum said it now has about 15 enterprise-focused solution providers for its tape automation products, 80 solution providers focused on the high-performance midrange automation market and another 2,000 active solution provider partners.