But in the meantime unveils the 500GB StorageTek T10000

Sun Microsystems yesterday took the wraps off its StorageTek T10000 enterprise tape drive. The device offers twice the capacity of its predecessor, in addition to advanced data protection and security features.

Delivering what Sun claims to be the industry's highest data throughput rate of 120Mbps, the device has capacity for up to 500GB uncompressed, or 1TB compressed, data on a single cartridge.

This represents a 250 per cent increase in density and a 400 per cent increase in throughput speeds over the earlier Sun StorageTek T9940B.

Future generations of the T10000 will feature expanded capacity up to 1TB uncompressed on a single cartridge.

The T10000 also features Sun's proprietary SafeGuide media-to-drive guiding system to mitigate the risk of data loss and corruption and enhance overall reliability, as well as Sun's advanced VolSafe write once read many media functionality.

Sun's StorageTek T10000 enterprise tape drive with Fibre Channel interface is available to customers worldwide today with a list price of $37,000. The T10000 with Ficon interface will be available in July with a list price of $44,000.