Maxell 3590E 60GB Supplementary Manual

Maxell Enterprise 3590E Tape™
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Critical business information needs to be protected yet accessible quickly and reliably around the clock and
from anywhere in the world. As tape backup technology continues to propel forward and evolve rapidly in
speed and density, Enterprise Series Tape Cartridges have become the ideal choice for high volume archiving
with outstanding performance and reliability.

What is Enterprise 3590E Tape?

Enterprise 3590E (Extended High Performance) Tape is a single reel ½ inch advanced metal particle, multi-
track, recording technology owned and licensed by IBM Corporation. Designed for the IBM 3590B, 3590E, and
3590H drives, the recording density is 128, 256, and 384-tracks respectively (drive dependent).
With 3:1 compression and fast data transfer rates of 14MB/s native, the cartridges are capable of holding up to
180GB each (60GB without compression).
This system has mainly been used at mainframe sites and in large corporations. The read-after-write capability
of the format makes for a very safe back-up device where data is "mission critical".
The cartridge format makes mechanical handling very easy and standalone drives can be supplied with
autoloader systems which automate the processing of several cartridges for data transfer or unattended back-up.
These drives form the basis of many of today's robotic tape library systems with multiple devices providing a
near-line storage capability of several Tera-bytes.

Features of Enterprise Technology

● Factory written servo tracks help improve data integrity
● Cartridge capacities up to 60GB (uncompressed)
● Custom labeling and initialization services are available for autoloaders and libraries

Drive Features

Enterprise hardware provides several key advances in technology as compared to other linear tape technologies.
Enterprise drives offer enhancements in head design and recording channel technologies resulting in greater
reliability between drive and media and faster data transfer rates.
Linear recording technologies feature read/write heads that remain stationary while the data is written to tracks
running along the length of the tape. After one track is fully written, the head drops to the next track and writes
in the opposite direction. The distinctive characteristics of this type of recording is called "linear serpentine"
recording for the "S-shaped" path it creates to record to the media.
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