Compaq 215487-B21-R 50GB (Native)/100GB (Compressed) AIT Hot-Pluggable Carbon Tape Drive

Product Description

The Compaq 215487-B21-R is a sophisticated tape drive leveraging AIT (Advanced Intelligent Tape) technology, renowned for its speed, capacity, and advanced features. This drive offers a native capacity of 50GB, which can be expanded to 100GB through effective data compression, making it a powerful solution for backing up and archiving large datasets in enterprise environments. The 'carbon' designation often refers to specific media types or enhancements within the AIT family, aimed at improving performance and durability. A key innovation of AIT technology, and present in this drive, is the Memory-in-Cassette (MIC) feature. This embedded memory chip on the tape cartridge stores metadata, such as file indexes and usage statistics, allowing for significantly faster file access and search operations compared to traditional tape drives. The hot-pluggable design further enhances its enterprise suitability, enabling the drive to be installed or removed from a system without requiring a shutdown, thus minimizing downtime and maximizing operational flexibility. With a SCSI interface, the 215487-B21-R ensures robust connectivity and high data throughput, with native transfer rates reaching up to 6 MB/s (12 MB/s compressed). This performance, combined with its substantial capacity and advanced features like MIC and hot-plugging, positions this Compaq tape drive as a reliable and efficient choice for critical data protection, disaster recovery, and long-term archival needs in demanding server environments.