Features - Storage Innovations:

SPECTRA LOGIC ANNOUNCES SPECTRA 2K WITH AIT-4

Spectra Logic is now taking orders for Sony's fourth-generation AIT drives in several products, including the Spectra 2K library. The Spectra 2K's proven design has been continually enhanced with Sony AIT drive technology, consistently offering up-to-date speeds at an entry cost point. Small to medium-sized customers can now purchase a field-proven library with a seven-year track record, enhanced with double the capacity and throughput of the preceding generation.

"At nearly 16TB capacity with AIT-4, the Spectra 2K library stores enough data for many organizations," said Peter Gerr, analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group. "The Spectra 2K library is a trusted product that's always offered Sony's latest technology, meaning customers get reliability and faster performance without requiring unnecessary options that increase costs."

New customers receive a solid library design, backed by Sony's leading-edge speed and roadmap, at a low-end cost. Existing customers can quickly add 100 to 470 percent more capacity when they upgrade to AIT-4 drives without having to spend thousands to purchase an entire library. Both will benefit from flexibility, since the Spectra 2K library supports Fibre Channel, Gigabit Ethernet and iSCSI protocols, allowing easy connection to existing infrastructures.

"In response to customer demand, Spectra Logic is committed to offering the latest technology in all of its products, while building on what's worked well for users for years," said Nathan Thompson, chief executive officer of Spectra Logic Corp. "Spectra Logic is enhancing its existing line and designing newer libraries to create a comprehensive set of products to fit every customer's storage needs and budgets."

AIT-4 offers 200GB storage capacity (520GB compressed) with a native transfer rate of 24MB per second in a 3.5-inch form factor. This capacity and speed is double that of the AIT-3 generation, per Sony's roadmap. AIT-4 drives are backward read/write compatible with AIT-3 media, and read compatible with AIT-2 and AIT-1 media.