IBM bundles Exabyte’s tape drives

BANGALORE: IBM will be bundling Exabyte’s VXA-2 tape drive for its eServer pSeries family of servers and workstations. The VXA-2 tape drive is designed to deliver a native capacity of up to 80 GB and a compressed capacity of up to 160 GB at a sustained transfer rate of up to12 MB/sec, while maintaining full read and write compatibility with the first generation VXA-1 tape drive.

"We are delighted that IBM has selected the VXA-2 drive for its powerful line of UNIX servers and workstation products. IBM's relationship with us has spanned many years and many generations of tape drive. We believe we are providing IBM and others a superior product, a powerful next-generation solution that helps dispel any industry uncertainty about what's next in the DDS replacement arena. We hope to continue to expand our relationship with IBM by providing additional VXA products in the future," said, Exabyte, President and CEO, Tom Ward.

The VXA-2 tape drive is made available to order from IBM both as an internal feature on selected current IBM eServer pSeries family of workstations and servers and as the 7206 Model VX2, an externally attached storage enclosure. The drive's SCSI Ultra 2 Low Voltage Differential (LVD) interface, the standard in peripheral connection, attaches to either LVD or single-ended SCSI host interfaces.