Sony's AIT-3 260GB Tape Drives

You might be able to do your individual daily data backups onto a CD or other device, but if you have to backup or archive gigabytes of data, a disc obviously just won't cut it. Sony says its new AIT-3 (Advanced Intelligent Tape) tape drive is targeted at the storage needs of midrange to enterprise-level businesses, e-mail archiving, rich media, audio/video, post-production, real-time data acquisition, transportable storage, and the back-office storage of records. The internal and external Sony AIT-3 tape drives are in a 3.5" form factor, and feature 100GB of native capacity (260GB with 2.6:1 compression) and a 12MB/sec sustained native transfer rate (31MB/sec with 2.6:1 compression). The drives are read and write backward-compatible with AIT-1 and AIT-2 media, so you can migrate to the higher capacity of AIT-3 without losing access to older data. Other features include an Ultra Wide SCSI (LVDS) interface, Advanced Lossless Data Compression (ALDC) technology, a built-in head cleaner that is invoked as needed by the drive, helical-scan recording, and support for platforms including UNIX, Linux, NetWare, Windows NT, and Windows 2000. Sony-branded AIT-3 drives and media are now shipping and come with a three-year limited warranty, Sony's 24-Hour Swap Program (which offers tape drive replacement for the first three years of operation with one-business-day turnaround in the event of a specified drive failure), and toll-free technical support. The drives are priced at $3,985 for the internal version and $4,225 for the external unit.