QuickSpecs

Automated Head
Cleaning/Intelligent
cleaning
HP DDS derives benefit from an automatic head cleaning "sweeper" that can be used during the
write or read recovery procedure to dislodge debris from the tape path and recording heads and
drive. This feature reduces the need to use a DDS cleaning cartridge for manual cleaning.
Intelligent cleaning determines the cleaning provided by a cleaning cartridge when loaded by
monitoring the drive performance when in use. If the drive is performing well, a routine
maintenance clean is performed. If the drive has degraded performance the cleaning is
automatically made more robust to recover the drive to optimum performance.
Interfaces HP offers a range of interface options with our DAT Tape Drives in order to meet the varying
needs of our customers. HP DAT drives are available with a choice of: the standard SCSI
interface where legacy SCSI connectivity is required, USB 2.0 interface for universal plug and play
connectivity and a SAS interface option for the very latest in server connectivity.
Native SAS – Serial Attached SCSI
As its name suggests, SAS delivers a new generation of technology based on a development of
the classic SCSI interface. First introduced in May 2002, the SAS interface leverages the proven
SCSI protocol to deliver new levels of scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness for today's
system connectivity, data transport, and data storage.
HP has introduced DAT 160 with a native SAS interface that allows customers to directly connect
and backup SAS configured servers and take advantage of the latest connectivity trends.
Why SAS?
For over 20 years, the parallel bus interface has been the mainstream storage interconnect for
most storage systems. While technologies like parallel SCSI meet most performance
requirements of today's enterprise solutions, continued demands for higher speeds, increasingly
robust data integrity, smaller designs and wider standardization have cast doubt on the ability of
parallel technologies to economically keep pace with increasing CPU processing power and disk
drive speeds. SAS is the new evolution of SCSI technology designed to overcome the limitations
of the SCSI architecture and delivers a number of benefits to enterprise systems:
New levels of performance – SAS is capable of moving data at speeds of up to 3Gigabits per
second, with a clear roadmap to 12Gbs in the future. A SAS connection can support four SAS
wide lanes or potentially 4 x 300MB/s per connection.
Increased availability – another benefit of SAS-based storage subsystems is the native dual port
capability of each SAS drive, providing a redundant path to each drive in the event of a controller
failover. In addition, since each drive is on a separate point-to-point connection, losing a drive
connection only affects a single drive. Compare this to parallel SCSI in which losing a bus affects
all the drives on the bus. Point-to-point also means that each device has the ability to connect
multiple initiators, allowing peripherals to be shared between several servers.
Greater flexibility – probably the best known benefit of SAS for external storage is its configuration
flexibility. A SATA drive can be plugged into a SAS mid-plane without any modifications or
changes, the controller and the software will seamlessly support a system with a mix of SATA and
SAS disk drives.
Why choose a SAS interface DAT drive?
The above benefits of SAS explain why system manufacturers, including HP, are rapidly moving to
SAS interfaces to connect internal peripherals. Customers purchasing a HP DAT Tape Drive with
native SAS interface can benefit from:
Wide availability of SAS ports – SAS interfaces are now widely available on servers and systems.
Furthermore with server I/O bus technology moving from PCI-X to PCI-Express (PCI-e),
QuickSpecs
HP StorageWorks DAT Drives
Product Highlights
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