Exabyte Mammoth Technology

Exabyte's new 8mm tape drive, Mammoth, has six times the transfer rate,
almost three times the capacity, and 25 percent greater reliability than
any of Exabyte's previous products. It has achieved these technological
advances while maintainning a half-high form factor, low power usage,
backward-read compatibility and a migration path for future products.

A number of technological innovations contributed to Mammoth's superiority.
These include the capstanless reel-to-reel design of the tape transport
mechanism, the high-performance scanner and the advanced metal evaporated
(AME) media.

Capstanless Tape Transport Mechanism

Exabyte drives, from the first EXB-8200 to the latest EXB-8505XL, have used
capstans and pinch rollers to drive the metal particle tape. Mammoth is
designed to use the new AME media in order to increase per-cartridge
capacity. As this tape is thinner, longer and smoother than metal partical
media, gentle tape handling is a high priority. While slow tape speed has
always helped to protect the media, the new capstanless design further
improves reliability by minimizing edge damage with less guiding and the
lower tape stress alignment design. Consequently it improves reliability
and extends tape life. The innovative tape transport mechanism also speeds
backhitches, searches and load-to-ready-times.

Mammoth's unique reel-to-reel design, which drives the tape, allows
accurate speed control at low speed and provides for increased efficiency
and low power consumption.

High-performance Scanner

Mammoth is Exabyte's first helical-scan product in which the scanners are
not developed and produced in Japan. Exabyte acquired key head and scanner
technology with the recent purchase of Grundig Data Scanner GmbH. Two
years ago, Exabyte started working with Grundig to develop the heads and
scanner for Mammoth. Influential design features include:

* tighter tolerances for higher recording density
* fewer parts promoting manufacturability and serviceability
* maximized utilization of the tape area
* higher transformer coupling coefficients

The scanner's innovative design plays a large role in Mammoth's high
capacity, reliability and fast transfer rate.

Advanced Metal Evaporated Media

Through a joint development effort with Sony Corporation, Mammoth will use
one of the highest density-capable media technologies developed for the
tape data storage industry. In order to achieve the capacity that Mammoth
targets, the media is thinner, fitting longer lengths of media into the
cartridge. The first tape available will be 160 meters in length. Internal
testing has proven that the thinner AME media meets or exceeds durability
and archivability goals.

Mammoth adheres to Exabyte's strategic direction of increasing throughput
and capacity while continuing to improve drive, data and media
reliability. Through such technical innovations as the capstanless tape
meshanism, high-performance scanner and AME media, Mammoth achieves the
20-gigabyte capacity, 3 megabyte per second transfer rate, and 200,000
hour MTBF rate that sets it apart not only from previous products but the
competition as well.

Exabyte Corp
1685 38th Street
Boulder, CO 80301
303-442-4333,  fax 303-447-7170
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Mammoth Compared to the DLT4000

Digital Linear Tape (DLT) originally developed by Digital Equipment
Corporation, now owned by Quantum, is a proprietary half-inch tape
cartridge technology which utilizes linear serpentine recording in
contrast to Exabyte's helical scan technique.

Root Problem

Although the specifications of the DLT4000 drive appear impressive, DLT has
not overcome some root problems that plague its acceptance: high unit
cost, non-standard size, high-power consumption, expensive proprietary
media, poor media shelf life and lack of OEM acceptance.

Performance and Reliability Disadvantages

DLT subjects the media to more stresses during acceleration and
deceleration than 8mm technology due to DLT's 200-times-greater tape
speed. The DLT4000 has a relatively slow load and search time. It meets
only half of Mammoth's 3-megabyte-per-second sustained transfer rate and
has only 40 percent of Mammoth's reliability.

Longer Media Problems

Besides costing more, the longer media in the DLT4000 tape cartridge takes
longer to rewind. In unattended library environments where cartridge
rewinds and changes comprise a significant part of the total search time
for data recovery, longer rewind times significantly impact performance
due to lenghtier search and recovery times.

Backward Read Confusion

In addition, there is confusion about the DLT4000's backward compatibility.
Mammoth can read data written by Exabyte's large installed base of 750,000
8mm drives. It is unclear what the DLT4000 will be able to read.

And, despite the new DLT drive, industry analysts continue to predict that
the installed base of all DLT half-inch tape drives will continue its
steady decline.

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