Exabyte Corp., the folks who specialize in tape backup systems, have introduced their second-generation (and Mac compatible) VXA tape drive. The VXA-2 offers full read and write compatibility with VXA-1. Shipments to select channel and OEMs began this month, and general availability to all customers is expected by September.
The VXA-2 drive can record 160GB to a single cartridge at a data transfer rate of 12MB/sec (at an average 2:1 data compression ratio). It has a manufacturers suggested retail price of US$999 and comes with FireWire, Ultra2 Wide SCSI and IDE/ATAPI interface options.
Four cartridge capacities are available for VXA-2. Compressed capacities of 40GB, 80GB and 120 GB are achieved with the same V6, V10 and V17 VXA tape brand cartridges available for use with the VXA-1 today. A new V23 cartridge for use only with the VXA-2 drive features a compressed capacity of 160 GB. The suggested price for the V6 is $26.95; VXA tape media pricing for all cartridge capacities maintains a price per gigabyte “very close” to $0.50, according to Exabyte.
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