A high capacity, high performance, small form factor magnetic tape storage system

A serpentine tape storage system has been developed using multichannel linear recording. It is the basis for a new product family specifically addressing high-data-rate applications. The first product is a 5.25-in full-height form-factor drive including the controller, with a capacity of 2 GB, which can be read or written in 11 min at a sustained data rate of 3 MB/s. It incorporates several significant technological advances including a read-while-write thin-film magnetoresistive read inductive write head, a new .25-in tape cartridge, and a heavily equalized data channel. A two-dimensional Reed-Solomon code is used to provide an error rate of <10/sup -14/.<>