Ardat Inc of Costa Mesa, California has announced a series of SCSI digital audio tape drives called Python and aimed at the OEM market and system integrators: they are designed for network and stand-alone workstation data storage and back up requirements; the new series of drives is claimed to be the first digital audio tape drives to feature both data compression, up to 8Gb, and 1Mb of on-board random access memory; the series consists of a 3.5 and 5.25 form-factor internal drive, and an external drive subsystem; initial shipments of the 3.5 drive, scheduled to start this month, will feature 512Kb of buffer memory and data compression; drives with 1Mb of memory and data compression are scheduled for May; average data transfer rates are claimed to be 366Kb per second, or 22Mb per minute; Python digital audio tape is $1,600 per unit in OEM quantities.
