IBM has introduced its latest tape drive, sporting up to 50 TB of storage, a 250% increase over the previous model.

While consumers may be after the latest SSDs, tape drives continue to be an important option for business and enterprise customers, serving as a cost effective, high-capacity storage solution for backups.

IBM’s latest TS1170 offers a significant storage upgrade over the TS1160 model. The TS1170 comes in two models, the 70F and 70S. IBM outlined the drives’ features:

IBM TS1170 Model 70F with Fibre Channel interface and Model 70S with SAS interface deliver a native data rate of 400 MBps (900 MBps compressed) and are designed to deliver a 250% increase in capacity on the JF media compared to the TS1160 tape drives. IBM TS1170 tape drives are able to read and write 50 TB capacities on JF media. Media written in TS1170 format is not readable by TS1160, TS1155, and TS1150 systems. Model 70F includes dual-port 16 Gb Fibre Channel support and Model 70S includes a dual-port 12 Gb SAS interface. TS1170 Model 70F and Model 70S are supported in IBM TS4500 tape libraries and suitable for businesses with substantial storage, backup, and archiving demands. TS1170 Model 70F also supports rack-mount installations.

TS1170 Model 70F can be installed on most 19-inch racks through a rack mount kit that provides better space utilization and enables installation and removal from either the front or the back without any tooling. The kit is RoHS-3 compliant and is compatible with TS4500 high-density tape drives. The rack mount kit is available in a 3U form factor and includes adjustable depth shelves for rack adaptability. It can enclose up to two TS1170 (3592-70F) models or combine them with its predecessors TS1160 (3592-60F), TS1155 (3592-55F), TS1150 (3592-EH8), or TS1140 (3592-EH7). It is equipped with two redundant, hot-swappable power supplies, two C13-C14 power cords for both tape drives, and a logic card for management of power. A drive filler panel (feature number 4806) can be also be used when only one tape drive resides on a rack mount kit.

Businesses can find out more, including technical specifications, here.