SERVERS & PERIPHERALS Secondary Storage Subsystem: Exabyte Mammoth Tape Drive I n the tape technology wars, the battle for sub-technology has raged fiercely this year. With Digital Linear Tape (DLT), Digital Audio Tape (DAT), Quarter-Inch Cartridge (QIC) and others all competing to wear the winner's crown, a network administrator's decision as to which products to use grew increasingly difficult. Then, from the battle dust emerged the victor: Exabyte Corp.'s Mammoth Tape Drive. Mammoth has set the standard for absolute state-of-the-art tape technology. With a native storage capacity of 20 GB and up to 40 GB compressed, along with transfer rates reaching 3 MB per second and 6 MB per second compressed, Mammoth has earned the right to work with any server or autoloader that's on your network. Add to those features the fact that it does all this at a much lower cost than DLT technology, and Mammoth's Well-Connected winner status is sealed. Mammoth's high-speed search capabilities of up to 376 MB per second and 20 second load-to -ready make this drive both fast and versatile for a variety of applications--ranging from simple backup and restore tasks to complex hierarchical data migration schemes. Exabyte has increased the value of its tape drive by reducing the cost of ownership. It achieved this by reducing the number of parts by 40 percent, which, in turn, has reduced the number of possible points of failure. Exabyte has also added low-pressure tape handling, which ensures both the long life of media and greater reliability. Exabyte Mammoth Tape Drive , $5,200, Exabyte Corp., (800) Exabyte, www.exabyte.com Honorable Mentions: Quantum DLT 7000 , $8,000, Quantum Corp., (800) 624-5545, www.quantum.com/products SDX-300C AIT Tape Drive , $4,995, Sony Electronics, (800) 352-7669, www.sony.com/storagebysony Awards Table of Contents

Updated April 24, 1997