History (1998): Native 50GB Sony 8mm AIT-2 Coming

According to representatives of Sony Japan who attended CeBIT, the first evaluation units of the AIT-2 will ship to OEMs in October, with volume shipping beginning in January 1999.

Main specs of the new product are twice as good as those of the AIT-1, that is, 50GB native capacity for the 8mm cartridge and 6MB/s transfer rate.

The improvements are mainly due to the use of laminate heads (like DDS-3 heads), new coding called TCPR (and no longer PRML-1), as well as a drum speed pushed from 4,800 to 6,400rpm.

The successor for the year 2000 should be the AIT-3, naturally (100GB, 12MB/s), using MR heads and narrower track pitch.

AIT-1 was first available in July 1996 and sold to the tune of 7,000 units by the end of December of that year. Announced sales in 1997 were 25,000 drives, 3,000 to 4,000 through distributor Seagate Technology.

This year’s target is between 70,000 and 100,000 devices.

A good part of the sales go through AIT’s library manufacturers, namely ADIC, Breece Hill, Emass, Spectra Logic, Qualstar and just recently, Grau Software.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 123 on April 1998 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.