Quantum’s tape platform

Quantum announced that its A-Series professional video technology will be available on the LTO (Linear Tape-Open) tape drive platform, beginning with LTO-3. By adding this leading mid-range format to the A-Series product line, Quantum will provide video professionals with a new, higher-performance archive solution offering up to 400 GB (native) of removable networked storage capacity  in a tape-based file system that is Material eXchange Format (MXF)aware.

As per a company release the A-Series drives have a built-in Gigabit Ethernet capability, are network-attached, permitting direct access by workstations and servers on standard IT networks. Being MXF-aware enables video tape-like access to subclips by time code and fast access to the metadata stored on the tape. The MXF capability of the A-Series solution also provides interoperability with many professional video applications and hardware as the MXF standard continues to be adopted within the industry.

Quantum’s new LTO-3 A-Series drives are designed to provide a higher capacity archiving solution than traditional video tape-based storage. Native capacity for an LTO-3 data tape is 400 GB (native), equivalent to more than 30 hours of 25 Mbps High Definition (HD) content. Each tape carries its own file system directory, allowing direct drag and drop access by applications and operating systems such as Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.

At its maximum data transfer rate of 544 Mbps (native), the LTO-3 A-Series drive is designed to transfer DVCPRO content recorded at 25 Mbps almost 20 times faster than real-time speeds; 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD content can be transferred approximately six times faster than real-time speeds.