Friday, May 22, 2009

Exabyte VXA X Tape Media

Regular backup routine is required by the small & mid sized enterprises for their servers. Creating backup of key files is very important because there should be a backup of data incase the hard drive of the server may crash or any other incident could take place that can damage the valuable data. Copying critical data to compact disk every now and then is not an effective solution.

The company will have to bear the cost of thousands of dollars to resurrect their critical data if there is no backup data available. The enterprises can use a second hard drive in the server that can serve the purpose of data backup, but the organizations depend on backup tape medium that is more reliable and cost efficient than hard drives. The data tape cartridges can be stored off-site and easily transported.

Exabyte VXA is the best tape technology for mid-range backup solutions. The tape format is more reliable and robust than the other tape formats. The tape format (part number 11100221) can hold 80 GB (native data) and compressed data up to 160GB. The tape format reads and writes information in the form of "packets". Large data blocks are read and written along the helical or linear tracks in the other tracking backup tape systems.

Advanced features are incorporated in this tape that enables this drive make adjustments to the tape speed so that it can be matched with the host's transfer speed. When there is interruption in the data flow, the tape drive stops, backs up and then it has to restart again. This is called back hitching. The new feature of VXA tape format is helpful in removing the problem of back-hitching which is not possible in other tape formats.

Media wear is sped up due to the back hitching and as a result the performance degrades. In this tape format, there are two pairs of head which makes of total of four heads. Each of the head pair contains one write head and one head for reading. These tape heads are placed on a rotating drum. The heads in VXA data tape technology are arranged as trailing and leading pairs. The tape head sweeps at an angle across the moving VXA tape reel's width.

When the data is being read, all the four tape heads participate as the leading head pair reads the information while the verification is done by the other trailing tape head pair. Each of the track regions contains about 350 data packets. Each of the data packets holds 128 bytes of information, address information, ECC blocks and CRC cyclic redundancy check. The reading of data packets in linear order is not necessary in this technology. The data is reassembled in proper order by placing it into a buffer.

When the data is reassembled, it is sent to the host system. This tape format is a big step forward that delivers outstanding performance and output at economical price. The powerful features and technologies employed in VXA data tape makes it more robust, reliable and the most demanded tape format. Thsi tape format is an excellent backup medium for the mid-range environments that efficiently performs backup operations at reduced cost. It offers unmatchable and exceptional reliability that can work under heavy workload and stress.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Exabyte-VXA-X-Tape-Media&id=2369650
Author:http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jessica_McIntosh

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