History (1999): British M4 Data Into DLT Library

A new DLT library manufacturer, M4 Data, is entering an already crowded market.

Its new MagFile can hold up to 10 base modules each containing 20 cartridges (plus cleaning cartridge) and 1 or 2 drives, with an elevator system allowing transfer of cartridges from one module to another.

The cartridge insertion works with the help of a 10-cartridge magazine or a user slot.

“Everything is hot swappable, the drives, the modules, the interface, even the PCI bus,” said Peter Baxter, internatisales manager.

Standard interface on the device is SCSI, but since the machine integrates a PCI bus, the conversion to FC could be effected with a simple card change, as could connection to a NAS or SAN.

Baxter further said that in its lab, M4 had continuously run a machine for 1.7 million successful cartridge exchanges.

The VAR price of a module with one DLT7000 drive is $9,000, $13,000 with 2 drives. Street price is around 40% more.

Availability is expected for mid-August.

Baxter projects a production of 2,000 to 3,000 libraries per year.

His company is currently the sole European computer tape library manufacturer, in tandem with Plasmon (which manufactures in the US), excluding Emass, which now belongs to the US-based Adic, but has been nearly a year late in releasing this new product.

“We are late.” said Baxter, “Because we’ve had to react to the competition and improve the unit. But our design will easily allow us to move on to other cartridges such as Eagle or LTO in the future.”

The first software partner to integrate the MagFile is French firm Quadratec in its Time Navigator for Unix or NT. For 8mm AIT, M4 is retailing the Bellevue, WA-based StraightLine’s line of libraries, which we had not heard of before now. The company manufactures Harrier 830 (1 to 3 drives/10 to 30 tapes), 850 (1-5/40-50), and 8150 (1-10/50-150) AIT libraries.

170 people strong, M4, which is 10% owned by StorageTek, attained sales of £18 million for its fiscal year ended November 1998, according to Baxter, a slight decrease over 1997, due to the crisis in Asia, where the firm has a particularly strong presence, with clients such as Samsung, Daewoo, Goldstar, etc, to which it sells open reel and 3490E tape drives that it makes itself.

The company claims to have installed 40,000 units throughout the world to date.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 138 on July 1999 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.