Media Performance Of Sony AIT Tape Versions

The broadcasters have to select the best, ideal and cost efficient digital media that can help to enhance their performance. Over the years, digital tape technologies have been enhanced and new innovative techniques are being used regarding structure and design of digital tape media. Sony gathered all its experience and developed new technique for storing bits.

AIT (advanced intelligent tape) came into data storage market in mid 1996. Helical scan concept in AIT tape format has improved the data density and efficiency. Transport reliability and media performance are very vital when the backup media has to perform its operations at high duty cycles. Transport reliability and media performance are ensured in Sony AIT tape technology. The structure of Sony AIT format is very robust that reduces the error rate. The helical system in AIT tape format comprises of servo-based motor mechanism and a rotating mechanical component called the helical scanner.

Sony has utilized all its experience and expertise in developing the AIT tape technology. Sony AIT tape is ideal for networking host and data backup. Capacity and throughput has been enhanced in the Sony AIT format. Sony has introduced new innovative evaporative metal-media in AIT tape format which helps in reducing the particle shedding. Therefore in this leads way the drive failures also decreases which is usually caused by pollutants that clog the drive's mechanisms. 2:1 compression ratio can also be used in the AIT tape format to enhance the storage capacity. Sony AIT1 tape cartridges come with two different capacities of 25GB and 35GB.

There are numerous problems in other tape formats pertaining to data directories and file accessing. In traditional tape formats, every time the data is excluded or appended to the tape media, an indexing structure is used that is recorded to the beginning of tape. Therefore whenever the media is loaded and when the data modification completes, the indexing headers of tape have to be read by the drive. Sometimes the header is found at the end of tape media and in majority of the tape media, it is located at its start. So the tape has to rewind again to the header. Additional time is required for cycling the tape media. During this process, any error can make the entire tape cartridge useless.

Sony gathered all its experience and developed new technique for storing bits. In Sony AIT tape, the data is not written on the header. Sony has moved the location of header and has placed it at such a place where the tape does not have to mount for reading the data. Therefore Sony has included Memory-in-Cassette in AIT tape cartridge which is commonly known as MIC. Memory-in-Cassette is a chip having capacity of 16kb. The metadata is not stored on actual media; rather it is recorded on the physical data cassette. File access time is dramatically reduced and the file searching time boosts due to this technique used in AIT format.

In 25/50 GB AIT tape format, the average time for file searching is about 27 seconds while in larger cassette formats, the file searching is done within time span of 37 seconds. File searching process in Sony AIT is about 50 percent faster than the other tape technologies.

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