Tape storage systems company Exabyte Corp is proposing the creation of a standard for Memory-in-Cassette devices, in an attempt to encourage software developers to support the technology in their back-up and archiving software. Sony Corp is currently the only manufacturer shipping MIC systems as part of its 8mm AIT Advanced Intelligent Tape product line, but others are expected to enter the market next year. MIC incorporates a captive non-volatile memory chip within the media cartridge to store cartridge meta data and speed up access times and reliability on large capacity drives. But storage software developers such as Seagate Software Inc, Computer Associates International Inc and Legato Systems Inc are unwilling to support MIC unless everyone agrees to implement it in the same way. Hewlett Packard Co and Storage Technology Inc are close to market using different approaches to the same problem. But Exabyte thinks there’s still time to agree on a standard, probably based upon but expanding the early work Sony has done to support tape library automation. Using the metadata stored on the MIC chip, cartridges wouldn’t need to be loaded onto the drives for searching, dramatically speeding up performance. Exabyte says it also plans to talk to HP about the possibility of incorporating its related TapeAlert device status monitoring and messaging utility. The standardization process is going through the existing ECMA TC17 standards committee, which is working on identifying and standardizing magnetic tapes and tape cartridges, and creating industry standards for tape formats.
