Exabyte Mammoth 8900 8mm Tape Drive
The Exabyte® Mammoth Tape Drive is a high-speed, high-capacity tape drive designed to meet the growing demands for data storage in such areas as enterprise-wide networks, data acquisition, image processing, video-on-demand, and multimedia.
The tape drive transfers data at a rate of up to 6 megabytes per second (MB/sec) with 2:1 compression and can store up to 40 gigabytes (GB) of compressed data on a single data cartridge.
The tape drive uses advanced metal evaporated (AME) tape, which provides a greater capacity than the metal particle (MP) tape used with previous generations of Exabyte products.
The tape drive supports the industry-standardized Tape Alert method for reporting errors and potential difficulties with the tape drive and media.
The tape drive’s internal Tape Alert firmware constantly monitors the tape drive and the media for errors and potential difficulties that could have an impact on backup quality and reports problems using a standard set of messages.
The tape drive is available in a variety of SCSI configurations and as either an internal or tabletop model.
- Narrow, single-ended
- Wide, single-ended
- Wide, high-voltage differential (HVD)
- Wide, low-voltage differential (LVD)
The LVD tape drive uses an LVD interface that is Ultra and Ultra2 SCSI compatible. The LVD interface allows the tape drive to be placed on the same bus as Ultra and Ultra2 SCSI devices without slowing the performance of these devices.
In wide SCSI configurations, up to 16 devices (including one or more initiators) can be attached to a single SCSI bus. SCSI IDs can range from0 to 15 on a single bus.
In the single-ended, narrow SCSI configuration, up to eight devices (including one or more initiators) can be attached to a single SCSI bus. SCSI IDs can range from 0 to 7.
The tape drive supports fast synchronous transfer mode in all SCSI configurations.
The internal model of the tape drive conforms to a 5.25-inch, half-high form factor and can easily be integrated into your own system. The tabletop model is an external peripheral housed in an Exabyte enclosure, complete with power supply and cooling fan.
Cleaning the Tape Drive
The Exabyte Mammoth features an integrated dynamic head cleaner (cleaning wheel) for automatic self-cleaning of the recording heads and scanner.
The cleaning wheel is activated every time media is loaded or unloaded. In addition, a sophisticated algorithm contained in the tape drive’s firmware can invoke the cleaning wheel if needed during extended backup or restore operations.
The self-cleaning action of the dynamic head cleaner typically extends the interval between manual cleanings to 72 tape motion hours. The interval depends on the number of tape motion hours and the type of tape being used (MP or AME).
When cleaning is required, the top LED turns on. To help maintain data integrity and reliability, you should clean the tape drive as soon as possible after the LED turns on.