StorageTek Offers next-generation fast access tape drive StorageTek T9840C tape drive delivers faster throughput and higher capacity.

LOUISVILLE, Colo., Aug. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/--Customers who look to StorageTek for its industry-leading automated tape storage solutions now have more reason for excitement. Fueled by popular demand and packed with enhancements, the T9840C has arrived.

StorageTek(R) (Storage Technology Corp.), (NYSE:STK), the storage services and solutions expert, today announced the availability of its T9840C tape drive, the latest evolution in StorageTek's award-winning T9X40 family of tape drives. With the 'fast access' T9840C, customers can enjoy industry-leading data access speeds, significantly increased data transfer rates and double the capacity of T9840A and T9840B. The T9840C is the logical choice for enterprise customers requiring extremely rapid data access, unmatched reliability and power at a significantly lower price point than disk-based solutions. Existing T9840 customers can maximize earlier investment by reusing T9840 cartridges in the new drive thereby doubling cartridge capacity.

"By doubling the storage capacity over the T9840A and T9840B, StorageTek's T9840C drives will enable us to use significantly less tape library space to do more work, and add more drives to extend the power and value of our StorageTek libraries," said Jacques-Charles Lafoucriere, storage manager, CEA / DAM (Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique /Direction des Applications Militaires). "Also, since the T9840C is backward read compatible with 9840A/B media cartridges, we can protect our previous investment and make the upgrade to the new T9840C drives virtually seamless."

"The T9840C plays an integral role in our Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy and sets the standard for advanced data storage, reliability and protection in data intensive, heavy duty cycle environments," said Gary Francis, StorageTek corporate vice president and general manager, Automated Tape Solutions. "With the T9840C, customers can achieve ultra fast data access compared to competing tape-based solutions, and at a much lower cost than disk. In this way, StorageTek is bridging the performance gap between traditional tape and disk storage to meet our customers' demanding data access needs for applications where disk performance and expense would be excessive."

"The T9840C tape drive delivers increased capacity and performance to customers who have growing demands to protect business-critical data," said Robert Amatruda, research manager at IDC. "In addition, StorageTek's T9840C provides customers a strong value-proposition employing backward read compatibility with tape cartridges from earlier generations of T9840 tape drives."

About the T9840C Tape Drive

StorageTek's T9840C features 40 GB/cartridge capacity (uncompressed), 30 MB/second data throughput for faster backup and restores, and an industry-leading 12-second average data access time. Equipped with a native 2Gbit Fibre Channel interface, the T9840C attaches directly to any storage area network (SAN) for high-speed connectivity without the need for add-on adaptors. The T9840C also features StorageTek's proprietary VolSafe(TM) advanced WORM (Write-Once-Read-Many) technology designed to support today's stringent electronic data storage regulatory mandates. It also features a VR2 data channel device that enables higher densities and faster data throughput.