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IBM today introduced new and enhanced tape storage products designed to help improve the way organizations handle high volume archiving and backup tasks.
Specifically, IBM introduced a new IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Tape Drive 3590 Model H that is more scalable, and also unveiled connectivity and simplified management capabilities for the IBM TotalStorage Virtual Tape Server that improves on its performance.
IBM’s new 3590 H Model tape drive stores up to 50 percent more information than the previous model on existing 3590 tape cartridges, thereby allowing customers to protect investments in media. It employs a new 384-track magnetic recording head that increases the capacity per tape cartridge. The higher storage capacity per tape can help reduce the numbers of tapes needed for backup and, consequently, the amount of floor space needed for storage.
The new 3590 Model H has a 14-megabyte per second native data rate and native capacity of 30 gigabytes (90 gigabytes with 3:1 compression) with the 3590 High Performance Cartridge or a native capacity of 60 gigabytes (180 gigabytes with 3:1 compression) with the 3590 Extended High Performance Cartridge.
According to IBM, both the 3590 Model H and the Virtual Tape Server (VTS) hold a significant advantage over competitive offerings with their ability to connect to mainframe systems using FICON. FICON can help lower infrastructure costs by allowing multiple ESCON channels to be replaced with a single FICON channel and longer distances between the server and tape storage devices, all while supporting significantly improved performance for backup applications.
“The success and continued evolution or our tape products prove that tape storage provides a critical role in today’s e-business environments,” said Walter Raizner, general manager for storage products, IBM Storage Systems Group. “With the shift to storage networking and an increased focus on disaster recovery and planning, tape storage simply cannot be beat for protecting valuable data that customer’s use to run their operations. That’s why we announced earlier this year an unprecedented roadmap for our 3590 family that is planned to lead to one terabyte tape cartridges.”
With nearly 100,000 tape drives shipped from the 3590 line, IBM designed the H Model to provide an easy upgrade path from the previous B and E models so that customers can gain immediate capacity benefits with low migration costs. The H model can also read cartridges written with the B and E models, further protecting a customer’s investment. The new 3590 Model H drives are available today, and upgrades from current B or E models to H models will be available on July 26, 2002.
In related news, Computer Associates today announced that its BrightStor family of storage management solutions is delivering first-day support for the new “H” drives.
“Computer Associates’ same-day support for our IBM 3590 H tape drive systems demonstrates a clear, ongoing commitment to meeting the operational requirements of IBM customers,” said Jim Kelly, vice president, marketing, Storage Products Division, IBM Storage Systems Group. “This kind of support is essential for today’s technology-dependent corporation.”
