Storage Technology Corp yesterday put the worries over Iceberg deliveries behind it and launched its promised developments of its runaway best seller, the Nearline Automated Cartridge System. The new babies are PowderHorn, TimberWolf, WolfCreek and ExtendedStore. The first – the 9310 – is an upgrade to the existing 4400, capable of doing up to 350 cartridge swaps an hour, using a new H-arm made of graphite composites used in the aircraft industry in place of the robot – with dual hand mechanisms for speed and fault-tolerance. Available first quarter 1993, it costs $350,000 for the Storage Module and Control Unit, $150,000 as an upgrade to the 4400. The TimberWolf 9350 and WolfCreek 9360 run at the same speed as the 9310 but have smaller capacity of 500 and 1,000 cartridges and can be upgraded in increments of 500 cartridges. The first is $95,000 from third quarter 1993, the second, $125,000, fourth quarter 1993. The ExtendedStore is an extension to the Nearline that excludes the tape drives and stores about 6,000 less-used cartridges and attaches to any library, using a pass-through facility. It attaches to any StorageTek library and is $130,000, now. The company also introduced release 1.2 of its Expert Library Manager software, available in the third quarter. The long lead times make it clear that StorageTek is anticipating IBM Corp’s launch next week.
