SATA tape: Why not?

SATA tape is just one of those technologies that just seem to make sense – a no-brainer if you will. In fact, if you really think about it, you might wonder why it hasn’t been brought to market sooner, especially since, as one tape vendor put it, only a "little retooling" is necessary to make it happen.

SATA tape is not only a good replacement for ATAPI on the desktop and a good use of spare ports in either low-end servers or NAS, but also potentially a natural complement to SATA disk in disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) configurations. (Why not leverage the cost/performance benefits of SATA throughout the backup environment?) The interface also has the added bonus of providing automatic compatibility to SAS, which will have significant benefits for users going forward.

In the fall, Quantum quietly introduced SATA support with the roll-out of its value line of DLT-V4 tape drives, and Sony this month will add SATA connectivity to its low-end family of AIT drives – specifically, the AIT-1/2 Turbo. My guess is that it’s only a matter of time before LTO vendors announce support for the interface too.

While it makes sense that Sony and Quantum decided to come out first with SATA tape support for their value, or low-end, tape drives and not higher-end versions of its tape drives, there remains an untapped market opportunity in the D2D2T space – one that could be filled in the near-term with SATA tape or down the road a bit with SAS tape.