Conner announces industry's first ATAPI IDE standard minicartridge tape drive.LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 1994--Conner Tape Products Group, a unit of Conner Peripherals Inc., (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :CNR), Monday announced the industry's first ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) The specification for ATA (IDE) tape drives and CD-ROMs. See IDE. ATAPI - AT Attachment Packet Interface (ATA (1) (AT Attachment) The specification for IDE drives. See IDE. (2) See analog telephone adapter. ATA - Advanced Technology Attachment Packet Interface) IDE minicartridge tape drive. The Conner minicartridge tape drive, the CTM CTM Continuum (gaming) CTM Community Trade Mark (Europe) CTM Cisco Transport Manager CTM Confederacion de Trabajadores de Mexico (Spanish: Confederation of Mexican Workers) 4000I-A, is a 2GB native (4GB using software compression) tape drive that offers data rates of up to 54MB per minute. It joins an existing family of 1-inch high, 3.5-inch form factor, high-performance DC2000 tape backup products featuring IntelliTrak high-speed technology. IntelliTrak high-speed tracking technology, developed by Conner, brings the performance characteristics typically associated with DAT (1) (Dynamic Address Translator) A hardware circuit that converts a virtual memory address into a real address. See also DAT file. (2) (Digital Audio Tape) A magnetic tape technology used for backing up data. products to the minicartridge platform. It relies on an intelligent head-to-tape interface for extremely precise tracking, providing reliable operation at high speeds. The CTM4000I-A design is based on Conner's popular 4GB SCSI SCSI in full Small Computer System Interface Once common standard for connecting peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, etc.) to small and medium-sized computers. SCSI has given way to faster standards, such as Firewire and USB. minicartridge product (CTM3200I-S I-S Information System(s) I-S Instructor-To-Student (Ratio) ) which also features IntelliTrak technology. Both Conner products are compatible with the QIC-3080 development standard and can interchange media. "Conner's high performance minicartridge products are perfect for protecting up to 4GB of data in storage intensive IDE and SCSI environments," stated Robert Morris, vice president tape marketing. "No other product marketed provides higher performance at this capacity and price point. With IntelliTrak high-performance technology, our minicartridge products are unbeatable." The new tape drive supports the QIC-157 ATAPI IDE interface, which is an enhanced version of the ATA IDE standard, the interface typically used with hard disk drives in personal computers. It supports IDE PIO Mode 3 for high-speed host data transfers of 11MB/sec. With an ATAPI IDE interface, users may add tape and CDROM See CD-ROM. drives for a total of four possible internal IDE peripherals. All internal peripherals may share a common bus and driver interface, making Conner's new tape drive easy to integrate in most PC systems. Key features of the ATAPI IDE minicartridge tape drive -0- -- Higher capacity - up to 4GB: The new tape drive uses media that is factory preformatted ensuring successful interchange between QIC 3080 tape drives. The drive supports 400-foot 900 Oe (oersted Pronounced "erst-ed." The measurement of magnetic energy. The higher the Oe rating in a material, the more current is required to change its magnetic polarity. Named after the Danish scientist, Hans Cristian Oersted (1777-1851), it is used, for example, to measure the coercivity ) quarter-inch media as well as the new QIC-Wide media developed by Sony Recording Media Products Group. See chart for media type and capacity. -0- Media (900 Oe) Native Capacity Compressed Capacity (typical) QIC-Wide 2GB 4GB Quarter-Inch 1.6GB 3.2GB -- Precision burst for reliable operation: High track densities used by the CTM4000I-A are achieved through "precision burst," a Conner proprietary intelligent head positioning system. During precision burst preformatting, servo reference bursts are placed at the beginning and the end of the tape. These bursts are used by the tape drive's thin film MR (magneto-resistive) head to ensure precision tracking. This process reduces head positioning activity and provides reliable operation at high speed. -- Two step process for data integrity: A two step process ensures data reliability and provides for a cost-effective product. First, the preformatting process screens the media for defect densities. Second, the level-six Reed-Solomon error correction code Noun 1. error correction code - (telecommunication) a coding system that incorporates extra parity bits in order to detect errors ECC telecommunication - (often plural) the branch of electrical engineering concerned with the technology of electronic (RS ECC (1) (Error-Correcting Code) A type of memory that corrects errors on the fly. See ECC memory. (2) (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) A public key cryptography method that provides fast decryption and digital signature processing. ) is used to deliver a hard error rate of less than one in 10 to the fifteenth. -- FastSense for optimal performance: The ATAPI IDE tape drive writes data at a rate of up to 54MB per minute and is capable of a 450, 300 or 200KBps data transfer rate depending on the capabilities of the host system. A proprietary Conner feature, FastSense allows the tape drive to automatically sense the speed of the host system and use the fastest available data transfer rate. -- Conner Backup Exec for data protection: The CTM4000I-A is compatible with Conner Backup Exec for ATAPI, a full-featured software solution that contains powerful tools to protect data on either stand-alone DOS or Windows systems or networked servers in Novell environments. Pricing and availability The CTM4000I-A will be available to OEMs in sample quantities beginning in November, 1994. Volume production is scheduled to begin in the first quarter, 1995. OEM pricing will be less than $385. Conner Peripherals Inc. Based in Costa Mesa, the Conner Tape Products Group, formerly Archive Corp., offers a complete line of digital audio tape See DAT. (storage, music) Digital Audio Tape - (DAT) A format for storing music on magnetic tape, developed in the mid-1980s by Sony and Philips. As digital music was popularized by compact discs, the need for a digital recording format for the consumer existed. (DAT), minicartridge and data cartridge products for DOS, OS/2, Windows, UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). and NetWare systems, plus DEC, IBM, Apple, Sun and other platforms. The group sells through Conner worldwide sales force to qualified OEMs, system integrators, distributors, resellers, retailers and mass merchandisers. Founded in 1986, Conner sells, designs and builds a comprehensive line of information storage solutions, including disk drives, tape drives, storage management software and storage systems, for a wide range of computer applications. Conner had 1993 sales of $2.2 billion. CONTACT: Conner Tape Products Group
Leilani Smith, 714/641-2435
Miller Communications
Ford Kanzler or Jozelle Cox, 415/926-9550
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