Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Is AIT the new DAT?

A: No. Despite the fact that AIT is based on helical scan the same as DAT, it is a very different tape technology. It was designed and manufactured by Sony as a proprietary technology (there are no industry standards associated with it) and has many barriers to overcome to gain mass adoption by the small and medium business market to the same extent as DAT:

1. Industry Standards - AIT is a proprietary format
   • Single developer
   • Limited market adoption
   • few OEM customers, limited availability with servers, restricted support
   
   
2. Market-share & installed base of customers
   • According to IDC, AIT has around 8% of the low-end tape market, despite being available for more then 10 years
   • DAT has a market-leading 86% market share of the low-end tape market and a huge installed base of 6 million customers (with over 19 million drives shipped)
   
   
3. Cost
   • AIT media is expensive giving a much higher cost of ownership
   • AIT media is more than double the cost of DAT media (AIT-2 Turbo is $64 vs. DAT160 at $36)
   Note: average media prices taken from StorageTrax Tape Media Report for October 2009
   
   
4. Compatibility & interchange
   • AIT compatibility is very confusing and limited:
   - AIT-1Turbo media cannot be read by AIT-1 drives
   • DAT is based on an industry standard format, providing:
   - Backward compatibility with previous generations
   - Interchange with other manufacturers DAT drives
   
   
5. Future confidence
   • Generation 7 products are already under development providing both
   higher capacity and increased performance points
   • DAT manufacturers group roadmap fully scoped and specified out to
   Generation 8

Q: Is DAT as reliable as other technologies?

A: The short answer is yes! Close to 19 million DAT drives have been shipped based on a proven track-record of reliability for the technology. There are three parts to this reliability:

1. The technology has numerous inherent reliability features, including three different levels of error correction and recovery.
   
   
2. DAT manufacturers group conducts ongoing testing of the DAT standard to ensure that customers can reliably interchange their data between different manufacturers DAT drives and also benefit from backward compatibility with previous generations.
   
   
3. Finally, individual manufacturers provide their own levels of reliability
   including:
   a. High quality engineering and product parts
   b. Performance and diagnostic tools

Q: Isn’t DAT at the end of its life as a technology?

A: DAT certainly hasn’t reached the end of the line - there is plenty of life left in DAT, with both customer demand for the technology and the ability to meet customer requirements for more capacity and performance. Remember: DAT remains the most popular technology for the SMB data protection market.

The seventh generation of DAT drive, DAT320 was launched in accordance with the published format roadmap in November 2009. The robust DAT technology roadmap is scoped out to the end of the decade. Unlike other roadmaps, the DAT roadmap includes introduction dates and technical specifications on how the capacity and performance goals are to be achieved providing further credibility.

Q: How does DAT compare with newer technologies like DLT VS?

A: DLTVS is not a newer technology than the latest DAT drives, DAT160 and DAT320. In fact, DLT VS is based on DLT technology, which was launched at about the same time as the first generation of DAT products. Unlike DAT, DLT wasn’t designed with backward compatibility as a design goal, and DLT VS has been compromised by compatibility constraints.

Q: What about VXA?

A: DAT has a much stronger future than VXA for the following reasons:

1. DAT is the market leading tape technology for small & medium businesses
   • with a 86% market share of low-end tape sales
   • and a current installed base of around 6 million drives
   • In 2008 there were 16x more DAT shipments than VXA shipments, with the newer DAT160 out-shipping total VXA shipments (across all VXA technologies), by more than 70% in Q4’08.
   
2. DDS format DAT technology is an open standard giving customers the benefit of competition:
   • Choice of manufacturer = better prices, better availability, faster development times
   • Ensures interchange of data between different manufacturers drives
   • Consistent interchange pattern between different generations of drive
   
   
3. Provides customers with the right balance of cost, capacity, performance and ongoing cost of ownership. The large installed base of DAT customers is largely within small and medium businesses where “enough” is often the best solution. DAT320 and the new generations of DAT described in the DAT roadmap are designed to match the majority of disk capacities and system performance at this level.
   
   
4. Lower total cost of ownership
   • VXA-2 media is more than 80% more expensive that DAT 160
   Note: average media prices taken from StorageTrax Tape Media Report for October 2009
   
   
5. Commitment to tape and the future of DAT
   • The DAT Manufacturers group and works with the other manufacturers to ensure that the DAT roadmap is robust and effective
   • VXA is a proprietary format from a single-source manufacturer which puts customers investment at risk