History 2003: DAT DDS Gen 5 at 36GB Arrives at CeBIT 2003

After QIC/Travan, DAT was the greatest success in the global data magnetic tape market, while DDS models remain the highest selling.

The first DAT units were launched in 1988 and were an instant hit. For the first time, manufacturers attained 1GB on tape, and with a tiny cartridge.

The instigators, HP and Sony, followed with DDS-2 (4/.5) in 1993 and DDS-3 (12/1) in 1995. DDS-4 (20/3), launched in 1999, was to have been the last version. At the end of 2000, HP, Sony and Seagate effectively decided not to develop a successor to DDS-4, since officially, it was deemed impossible to go any further in so small a media.

Guess again. HP and Seagate did an about-face in January of this year, announcing that there would be a DDS-5, only not under that name, since Sony owns the DDS logo. For HP, then, it will be known as DAT72, to be announced officially in mid-April, with availability at the end of the month (note in passing that we’re still awaiting the announcement of Seagate’s offering in this technology, as well as in LTO-2).

At CeBIT, HP demonstrated the new unit in an enclosed display case, and it was not yet operational. In the rear, we noted Mitsumi’s name on a chip. At the Mitsumi display, a representative confirmed for us that the drive does indeed hail from Mitsumi, as did HP’s previous DDS-4 (Seagate, however, supplied itself from Matsushita Kotobuki Electronics).

Native capacity will be 36GB, for an increase of 60%. However, it seems that transfer rates will not improve, remaining at native 3MB/s. This is because, according to certain sources, the only modification between DDS-4 and -5 was an increase in the length of the tape, something of a disappointment.

Compatibility with prior DDS-3 and -4 technology, both in read and write is assured.

We saw an external DAT72 unit, perhaps the first ever on view in public, at the display of the highly dynamic Spanish storage distributor Mast Storage, which is launching the product under the name DDS Gen 5 for €1,242, end user price.

DDS-6 with capacity not yet known but which should boast transfer rates increased to 6MB/s is apparently in preparation for the end of the year. Rumors suggest, however, that HP may prefer a low-cost LTO.

Those who are betting on the DDS replacement market, whether Exabyte with its VXA, Sony and AIT-1, Tandberg with SLR or even Onstream and its ADR, have so far not really managed to impose themselves, only to discover now that the rival they thought dead and buried is back.

There is clearly a demand for DDS-5 from users still in DDS. And there are a lot of those.

We’re also waiting to see if HP will continue to sell/resell  simultaneously its DDS-5 units and Sony’s AIT-1 now in direct competition, as incidentally is the case with SDLT and LTO.

Before the CeBIT, IBM promised to demo a 1TB LTO tape drive on its booth. What we saw was only a half-inch Magstar 3590-type cartridge all alone in a display case, alleged to contain a 1TB storage.

This article is an abstract of news published on issue 183 on April 2003 from the former paper version of Computer Data Storage Newsletter.

Note: On April 2001, Sony Electronics Inc.’s Tape Streamer Products Division said that it will be replacing the 10-year-old digital DAT with its own AIT line. Furthermore, Hewlett-Packard Co. announced its departure from future DDS incarnations last year. Meanwhile, Seagate said that it has no plans to come out with the next version, a DDS-5 product line.