IBM last week bolstered its tape products to give users more back-up capacity and improved performance. IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Tape Drive 3590 Model H uses a new magnetic recording head that increases the capacity of the drive by 50 per cent over older versions of the product. An upgraded 40GB Model B or E drive can record up to 60GB of data. The 3590 attaches to all IBM servers and to servers running HP-UX, Solaris, Windows NT/2000 and Linux. The company also has added fibre connection support to its IBM Virtual Tape Server, which increases performance by as much as 75 per cent over fibre-base Enterprise Systems Connection models. The Virtual Tape Server attaches to all zSeries and pSeries servers, and those running Solaris, HP-UX or NT/2000. The 3590 starts at $US43,500 and is available this month. The Virtual Tape Server with FICON capability will be available in September for $30,000 per tape channel.
