Solon, Ohio-based Rexon Inc has become the sixth company to announce plans to develop drive and minicartridge products using 3.5 Travan technology from Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co that more than doubles existing minicartridge capacity. Last December 3M, Sony Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co’s Colorado Memory Systems Division, Conner Peripherals Inc and Iomega Inc announced plans to manufacture products based on the Travan modified Quarter Inch Cartridge drives (CI No 2,565). The first cartridge is expected to store 400Mb, while the current QIC-80 capacity is 125Mb. The modified 3010 is expected to store 800Mb, against 340Mb currently. A modified 3020 drive and cartridge is also expected which will store 1.6Gb of data against its current 670Mb capacity. The companies are working with the Quarter-Inch Cartridge organisation to develop a migration path that incorporates the Travan cartridge and the resulting drive recording formats. The Travan system will optimise available space in a 3.5 drive form factor housing. Mechanical changes will enable the drive to accept current QIC minicartridges, QIC-Wide and Travan cartridges. The new cartridge will contain 750 feet of 0.315 medium. The initial Travan cartridge offerings will require no changes in media formulation and will use existing drive electronics and available head technology, making them backwardly-compatible with existing tapes. Analysts suggest that the new minicartridge technology will enable QIC minicartridge products to compete with rapidly increasing hard disk capacities.
