Tape Drive - History

History

Year Manufacturer Model Capacity Advancements
1951 Remington Rand UNISERVO 224 kB First computer tape drive
1952 IBM 726 Use of plastic tape (cellulose acetate); 7-track tape recording 6-bit bytes
1958 IBM 729 Separate read/write heads providing transparent read-after-write verification. As of January 2009, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California has working IBM 729 tape drives attached to its working IBM 1401 system.
1964 IBM 2400 9-track tape that could store every 8-bit byte plus a parity bit.
1970's IBM 3400 Auto-loading tape reels and drives, avoiding manual tape threading; Group code recording for error recovery at 6250 bit-per-inch density
1972 3M QIC-11 20 MB Quarter-inch cartridge tape cassette (with two reels)
1974 IBM 3850 Tape cartridge (with single reel)

First tape library with robotic access

1978 Commodore International Commodore Datasette 1978 kB Use of standard audio cassettes
1980 Cipher (F880?) RAM buffer to mask start-stop delays
1984 IBM 3480 Internal takeup reel with automatic tape takeup mechanism.

Thin-film magnetoresistive (MR) head.

1984 DEC TK50 94 MB Digital Linear Tape (DLT)
1986 IBM 3480 Hardware data compression (IDRC algorithm)
1987 Exabyte/Sony EXB-8200 2.4 GB First helical digital tape drive.

Elimination of the capstan and pinch-roller system.
1993 DEC Tx87 Tape directory (database with first tapemark nr on each serpentine pass).
1995 IBM 3570 Head assembly that follows pre-recorded tape servo tracks (Time Based Servoing or TBS)

Tape on unload rewound to the midpoint — halving access time (requires two-reel cassette, resulting in lesser capacity)

1996 HP DDS3 12 GB Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML) reading method — no fixed thresholds
1997 IBM VTS Virtual tape — disk cache that emulates tape drive
1999 Exabyte Mammoth-2 60 GB The small cloth-covered wheel cleaning tape heads. Inactive burnishing heads to prep the tape and deflect any debris or excess lubricant. Section of cleaning material at the beginning of each data tape.
1999 HP DDS4 20 GB Holds two-thirds more data than a DDS3 tape. (Note: DDS-4 is also known as DAT 40.)
2000 Quantum Super DLT 110 GB optical servo allows more precise positioning of the heads relative to the tape.
2003 IBM 3592 Virtual backhitch
2003 Sony SAIT-1 500 GB Single-reel cartridge for helical recording
2006 StorageTek T10000 Multiple head assemblies and servos per drive
2006 IBM 3592 Encryption capability integrated into the drive
2008 IBM TS1130 GMR heads in a linear tape drive
2010 IBM TS2250 LTO Gen5 Linear Tape File System (LTFS), which allows accessing files on tape in the same way as on a disk filesystem
2011 Oracle T10000C 500 - 5000 GB ?

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