Tape libraries are all the rage these days and Boulder, Colorado-based Exabyte Corp has brought the concept down to 8mm tape cartridges with the EXB-10i Cartridge Handling Subsystem desktop data cartridge stacker, which randomly or sequentially accesses 25Gb to 250Gb of data depending on the tape drive configuration. When configured with an EXB-8200 8mm Cartridge Tape Subsystem, random addressable capacity is 25Gb; configured with the EXB-8500, the capacity is 50Gb; and goes to 250Gb with transfer rates of up to 2.5Mbytes-per-second with the new EXB-8500c with compression, scheduled for first quarter 1992. The stacker offers 28 hours of unattended operation and uses the SCSI-II interface and similar applications software as the high-end EXB-120 Cartridge Handling Subsystem, which offers compressed storage capacities of up to 2.9Tb depending on nature of the data. The integral robotic cartridge handling mechanism provides an average access time of 20 seconds to pick and place any of 10 8mm cartridges. The cartridges snap into a contamination-resistant Exabyte 8mm Data Cartridge Holder which can be removed for off-line storage. End-user prices for the EXB-10i will likely start at $15,000 up, depending on drive configuration and reseller software complexity.
