History 2002: Lots Technology Continues to Work on Optical Tape Drive

Lots Technology, previously LaserTape Systems, continues to work – it’s been 10 years now – on WORM optical tape phase-change technology that should allow it to attain or even exceed a terabyte.

The half-inch (12.7mm) wide and 440m long optical tape is housed in a 3840-type cartridge, for a capacity of 1TB.

In a more spacious DTF dual reel cassette that can hold up to 660m of tape, this figure can go as high as 1 .3TB. Sustained read and write transfer rate is up to 25MB/s with an average access time of 15s.

The half-inch (12.7mm) wide and 440m long optical tape is housed in a 3840-type cartridge, for a capacity of 1TB. In a more spacious DTF dual reel cassette that can hold up to 660m of tape, this figure can go as high as 1.3TB. Sustained read and write transfer rate is up to 25MB/s with an average access time of 15s.

The head, which includes an 8×8 bit array and a 532m green laser, permits parallel writing of 8 tracks with 0.8m track spacing. Since the head never comes in contact with the tape, Lots estimates archival lifespan at 100 years.

The introductory list price of the recorder, named LaserTape 25T, which fits into a 19-inch rack, is expected to be around $50,000, with SCSI, FC, 1394 and OC-3/12 interface versions planned.

Although Lots received $17 million in financing, the release of a final product has nevertheless beenndelayed due to funding limitations, according to William Oakley, Lots chairman and CEO.

Meanwhile, MicroContinuum is working on the media to be used by Lots’ drives. Its TeraTape is a 1TB WORM, or erasable optical tape, using a process developed by Polaroid to make optical disks on continuous roll.

Since 1989, here and there every now and then we’ve heard whispers of optical tape recorders – recall Creo, ICI, OTSG, StorageTek – although to date there have been no major successes.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 168 on January 2002 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.