Cache-A has announced the Prime-Cache data tape deck. The company has licensed Quantum’s A-Series technology, which integrates with industry-standard Linear Tape Open (LTO) data tape drives.
Designed to be a low-cost means of archiving video assets, the Prime-Cache data tape deck writes data on secure, portable, reliable and interchangeable LTO-4 cartridges using a standard TAR format at a cost of approximately 6 cents per gigabyte. With a single Prime-Cache system, users could manage a 200TB archive for a total cost of less than $20,000 including media — and with an archive life of 30 years.
The data tape deck stores data on cartridges that have a native capacity of 800GB, providing the ability to store more than 60 hours of 25Mb/s SD or more than 15 hours of 100Mb/s HD content. The Prime-Cache systems provide fast file transfers over Gigabit Ethernet at speeds greater than 50MB/s. They also provide backward compatibility with the ability to read Quantum’s LTO-3A cartridges.
With its built-in Gigabit Ethernet connection, the Prime-Cache data tape deck can be plugged into any network to provide direct, simultaneous access by laptops, workstations and servers and to easily archive source masters for digital acquisition or project archives for post-production.