• Home
• Articles Archive
• Features List

• Media Pack
• Contact Us
• Subscribe

Sony StorStation SAITe1300

From STORAGE Magazine Vol 4 No 01 - Febuary 2004

It seems remarkable that only two months ago StorAge reported on the new TotalStorage Enterprise Tape Drive 3592 and already IBM's claims that it was the world's highest capacity enterprise tape device have been surpassed. Sony steps forward to take this honour and its new S-AIT format looks like it will be a tough act to follow, as the first generation StorStation SAITe1300 delivers an incredible native storage capacity of 500GB on a single 1/2in. cartridge. It isn't as fast a performer as the 3592 as it can only muster a native transfer rate of 30MB/sec but this is still not to be sniffed at as it compares extremely well with the majority of the competition at both the mid-range and enterprise sectors.

No tape format is complete without a product roadmap and Sony has plans for a further three generations of S-AIT. The next phase will be of most interest as S-AIT 2 looks likely to be the first format to deliver a native storage capacity of 1TB on a single cartridge. Sony has made these remarkable achievements simply by taking its current AIT (advanced intelligent tape) format and modifying it to use 1/2in. cartridges.

The drive continues to use helical scan recording technology as employed by AIT, DDS, VXA and Mammoth. The higher recording density of AIT allows it to offer significant advantages over the linear recording methods used by DLT, SDLT and Ultrium, as it can store far more data on the same length of tape.

Sony calculates that even the 8mm AIT format will use only 230metres of tape to store the same amount of data that linear recording technology will require at least 600 metres of tape for. Another important development is that the internal S-AIT drive has the same form factor as SDLT and Ultrium so autoloader and library manufacturers don't need to make any modifications to their standard product line to accommodate the new drives.

S-AIT also incorporates Sony's MIC (Memory in Cassette) technology which comprises a flash memory chip embedded on all AIT media and can be used to store information such as serial numbers, recovery information and media type. However, this takes on a new role with S-AIT as, along with IBM, Sony also plans to implement WORM (write once read many) capabilities by using the MIC chip along with updated drive firmware, which will allow media to be designated as read-only once it has been created.

For performance testing we installed the drive on a dedicated Ultra160 SCSI controller in a test server running Windows 2000 Server. Backup software came courtesy of Veritas Backup Exec 9 and Computer Associates ARCserve 9 and the drive was asked to backup, verify and restore 18.5GB of test data stored on a separate Ultra320 Seagate hard disk. We used a wide range of compressible and uncompressible data which provides a good real-world indication of general performance. The SAITe1300 didn't disappoint with it delivering close to its native backup transfer rates under both software platforms with Backup Exec and ARCserve reporting 1,812MB/min and 1,803MB/min respectively.

Restoration speeds were also comparatively good with ARCserve reporting an average speed of 1,012MB/min whilst returning all the test data to its original location.

As a mid-range backup solution the S-AIT is far too expensive. However, on price it is clear that Sony is pitching the S-AIT format at the enterprise level as the SAITe1300 compares very favourably with the alternatives from IBM and StorageTek. It also delivers good performance but purely on native storage capacity it is unlikely that S-AIT will be beaten for a very long time. ST

Product: StorStation SAITe1300
Supplier: Sony
Tel: 01932 816609
Web site: www.sonyisstorage.com
Price: External drive, £8,931 ex. VAT. S-AIT 1 Media £172 ex. VAT