HP, Sony Work on Next-Gen DATHP, Sony Work on Next-Gen DAT

Hewlett Packard and Sony announced an partnership to develop the Digital Audio Tape (DAT) 320, with twice the speed and capacity of current backup tape drives.The new DAT standard is expected to offer transfer speeds of up to 86 GB per hour with 2:1 data compression and hold 320 GB of data on a single cartridge, twice the current standard. DAT 320 drives will also use less energy than current models and be backwards compatible DAT 160 tapes.

The two companies will each offer their own line of drives and cartridges. DAT 320 will be an open standard, meaning that other companies will be able to license the technology. General availability is expected in 2009.

"Tape customers are concerned about outgrowing their existing tape drives and do not want to switch away from a cost-effective and trusted technology like DAT/DDS," said Robert Amatruda, research director, Tape and Removable Storage, IDC. "The use of tape storage to support backup and archiving is very popular and the doubled capacity with the DAT 320 will be an ideal choice for small to midsize businesses who have limited space for extra hardware."Business Wire via MarketWatch