Cybernetics Press Release

USB + Firewire Compatible Tape Drives

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AIT Tape Backup is Fast, Portable with USB 2.0 and Firewire Connectivity

February 26, 2004, Yorktown, Virginia – Cybernetics has announced the immediate availability of USB + Firewire attached AIT tape drives for portable performance tape backup. With USB 2.0 transfer rates of up to 48 MB/s, and IEEE1394 Firewire rates of up to 40 MB/s, server and laptop users can now take advantage of the speed of AIT tape drives with exceptional portability, availability and security benefits.

Historically, very high speed and high capacity tape backup drives have required connectivity to a dedicated SCSI controller in the host PCI bus, with cabling that is simply not designed to stand up to frequent connects and disconnects. This old model of direct SCSI attachment to individual servers can become very expensive and cumbersome for backing up a large number of secure servers and laptops. A dedicated network backup server can be deployed to backup data over a network, but costs for network backup software and hardware can be quite significant, and all too often, serious speed limitations and security concerns make network backup completely impractical, if not impossible.

By contrast, USB and Firewire devices can easily be connected and disconnected without damage to hardware connectors or cables. And since these devices are auto-detected without a system boot, devices can be added, removed and replaced without any impact on server operations. Total cost of ownership is dramatically reduced through extremely low cost of connectivity and the ability to share a single data protection storage device among a large number of host systems.

The small, lightweight 3.5" half height form factor of the AIT tape format is perfectly suited to USB and Firewire portability. Steven Jones, a storage analyst with Cybernetics commented "With this technology, a single AIT tape drive can be deployed to provide secure backup for a large number of client systems, without any special software or host adapters, at a tremendous cost savings. With both USB and Firewire connections, this is an outstanding alternative to SCSI."

Based in Yorktown, Virginia, Cybernetics manufactures, sells, supports and services a complete line of backup and storage solutions. Established in 1978, Cybernetics is recognized in the US and across the world as a pioneer in data storage technology and is well renowned for highly innovative storage features while ensuring top reliability and interoperability of systems.

For more information, please call (757) 833-9000 or visit www.cybernetics.com.

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