Technical data

1
Chapter 1
1. Introducing the DLT2000XT Tape Drive and
DLT2500XT Stacker
The DLT2000XT single-ended tape drive is a high-performance, high-capacity, 1/2-inch
streaming cartridge tape product designed for use on Silicon Graphics high-performance
servers and graphics systems. Using data compression and compaction, the DLT2000XT
tape drive features a potential formatted capacity of 30 GB and a sustained user data
transfer rate of up to 2.5 MB per second. The DLT2000XT tape drive design, a 5.25-inch
form factor, includes a dual-channel read/write head, Lempel-Ziv (LZ) high-efficiency
data compression, and tape mark directory to maximize data throughput and minimize
data access time.
The DLT2500XT differential stacker is a tape minilibrary that performs automatic tape
operations. It includes the tape drive and a five-cartridge SCSI-2 medium changer device
(loader). The DLT2500XT stacker provides unattended backup of 150 GB in less than 16
hours or up to 75 GB in an eight-hour shift in a compressed mode.
The DLT2000XT tape drive and DLT2500XT stacker use white CompacTape
®
IIIXT tape
cartridges that have a capacity of 15.0 GB (native) or 30.0 (compressed). Built-in data
compression increases cartridge capacity and drive transfer rate by a factor of 2 to 2.5.
This medium can endure 500,000 passes and has a shelf life of 30 years. Chapter 5,
“Operation,” contains details on tape cartridges for the DLT2000XT tape drive and
DLT2500XT stacker.
For unattended backups or archiving, the DLT2000XT tape drive or DLT2500XT stacker
allows you to back up a high data-capacity system at a high speed. In noncompressed
mode, either device has a maximum transfer rate of 1.25 MB/second; in compressed
mode, the maximum transfer rate is 2.5 MB/second on writes and 3.0 MB/second on
reads. The compaction features of the DLT2000XT/DLT2500XT include a read/write
cache of 2.0 MB; this working space enables maximum use of available tape space.