IBM Corp yesterday enhanced the 3480 Tape Subsystem and cut prices on the line by 12% to 17%. The delayed and anxiously awaited 3990 Model 3 Storage Control unit with cache capability will now ship in December, but key features will not be out until next year. On the 3480 Model A22 tape drive Control Unit, the data rate has been increased to 4.5Mbytes-per-second from 3Mbps and cache store has been doubled to 2Mb. IBM will also be offering an improved data recording capability for the 3480 in the second half of 1989, which could increase 3480 cartridge capacity three to five times and boost overall tape subsystem performance up to 50% – making life a little harder for the likes of Storage Technology Corp. It is believed the technique is Multi-track Serpentine Recording, jointly developed by IBM with Cipher Data Products Inc, in which data is recorded in a wavy line on 24 tracks in groups of two for MSR 2, four for MSR 4. According to Cipher, it can reduce back-up time by as much as a factor of 10 and store up to 320Mb on a cartridge. Price cuts apply for all four models of the 3480 – A22, B22, A11 and B11, and all features including Automatic Cartridge Loader; the A22 is reduced 17% to $56,930. Channel and buffer enhancements to the IBM 3480 A22 controller will be out on November 18, and will be standard on all 3480s shipped thereafter while field upgrades start at $5,500. On the 3990 Model 3, IBM says that by transferring frequently-used data to and from high-speed cache, rather than disk storage, it 3 can more than double the performance of a Model 2, but the Extended Function, consisting of Disk Fast Write and Dual Copy, will be available on Early Support in the first half of 1989, as was previously announced.
