GigaTrend Inc of Carlsbad, California has introduced Slim Line, a 1Gb 5.25 series of digital audio tape drives: the product is available in several versions, and each can be configured differently on a local area network depending on needs and data storage applications; LanDat SL is workstation-based, and it enables all fileserver data to be backed up from the supervisor workstation, while ServerDat SL is server-based and backs up fileserver data as well as local disk drives; the entire series of half-height drives will be available with extended 300 foot tape, and the SL flash memory feature is claimed to eliminate the need to dismantle the drive for firmware changes since a cassette is inserted into the drive for an upgrade procedure; the series contains gate array chip configuration on the board level and ASIC circuitry to control its logic, while SCSI-2 is a programmable SCSI set that is backward compatible with SCSI-1; costs are from $4,000 to $6,000.
