What is AIT?
Advanced Intelligent Tape™ (AIT) is an established standard
in the tape drive industry. AIT incorporates numerous advancements
in tape technology, such as AME media, ALDC compression, Memory-In-Cartridge,
and Super Head Cleaner™, to offer reliable, high-capacity
storage within a compact, 3.5-inch half-height form factor.
What is Advanced Metal Evaporated media?
Advanced Metal Evaporated (AME) media is an extremely durable
media formulation developed by Sony. Unlike metal particle
media, which contains binder material and additives that can
cause head contamination, the magnetic recording layer of
AME media contains pure evaporated cobalt, which is then sealed
with a super-durable, diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating and
a lubricant. This allows for higher density recording, resulting
in higher capacities in less space, in addition to providing
a highly reliable, virtually contamination-free operating
environment.
What is Memory-In-Cassette?
Memory-In-Cassette (MIC) is a 64-kbit memory chip built into
AIT data cartridges. Unlike conventional tape drives that
must rewind to the beginning of the tape to read the system
log and find the desired file, the MIC chip provides sophisticated
data access, decreasing file access times up to 50 percent.
MIC also allows users to load and unload the tape at any point.
By eliminating the need to rewind to the beginning of the
tape, the MIC chip decreases wear and tear on the cartridge
and increases reliability.
What is Adaptive Lossless Data Compression?
Adaptive Lossless Data Compression (ALDC) is a compression
technology co-developed with IBM. ALDC provides greater data
compression efficiency compared to older technologies commonly
used by competitors, such as IDRC or DLZ algorithms. Enhanced
for the AIT format, ALDC achieves compression ratios up to
2.6:1.
What is a Metal-In-Gap tape head?
To ensure the tape is held firmly against the head assembly,
tape tension must be enough to produce accurate read-write
responses yet minimize head wear and buildup from tape debris.
Head design, tape tension, media composition and method of
cleaning—all affect the drive system and media reliability.
Sony AIT drives feature a Metal-In-Gap (MIG) tape head with
a unique geometry enabling it to maintain up to 50% less tape
tension than that of competing technologies, resulting in
a head life of 50,000 hours and industry-leading reliability.
Can other 8mm drives read AIT media?
If you put the AIT cartridge into another other 8mm mechanism,
it will accept the AIT cartridge, however it is permanently
write-protected. The recorded data will not be damaged.
Can AIT drives read or write other 8mm media?
The AIT format is a future-oriented format that sets new
performance and capacity standards for utilizing high-density
recording. Its design is optimized for recording AME media
and will not accommodate older media types.
Is AIT media widely available?
Sony is one of the largest suppliers of media in the world,
for AME media, as well as most other recording formats. To
increase production in the U.S., Sony recently invested $34
million to bring AIT tape production on-line at the Dothan,
Alabama manufacturing facility. At the same time, Sony is
working with other potential manufacturers to provide a second
source for the AME media.
What backup applications and operating systems support AIT
technology?
Sony is constantly testing the AIT product line to certify
under most leading backup applications. Solutions are available
to run under almost any operating system, such as: DOS, Windows
95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Netware, HP UNIX,
AIX, SCO UNIX, Sun Solaris, OS/2, IRIX, Linux, and Macintosh.
Why choose AIT over the competition?
While some IT environments still incorporate legacy tape
systems, many others have migrated to higher capacity, higher
performance tape technologies such as AIT, DLT, Mammoth, or
LTO. Although each provides features a step ahead of the older
legacy tape formats, AIT stands out above the others for its
innovative design, superior capacity, access and retrieval
speed, and durability. In addition, AIT offers a clearly defined
roadmap strategy, providing investment protection.
Are library systems available that support the AIT drive?
Many system manufacturers and storage solution providers
have made AIT technology part of their own leading product
solutions, including automated and scaleable tape libraries,
expandable racks, and autoloaders.
Does the AIT drive need cleaning?
In the event that contamination build-up occurs on the tape
head, the AIT drive provides an automated cleaning solution.
The Super Head Cleaner‰ is a built-in, head cleaning
mechanism that is activated when soft errors (ECC, rereads,
rewrites) reach a certain threshold. AIT's Super Head Cleaner
‰ increases the head life, and reduces the need for cleaning
tapes and the operational problems they can cause.
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